[Published originally in the March 2002 edition of Computing Research News, pp. 4-11.]

2000-2001 Taulbee Survey

Hope for More Balance in Supply and Demand

By Randal E. Bryant and Moshe Y. Vardi

This article and the accompanying tables present the results of the 31^st annual CRA Taulbee Survey¹ of Ph.D.-granting departments of computer science (CS) and computer engineering (CE) in the United States and Canada. This survey is conducted annually by the Computing Research Association to document trends in student enrollment, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries.

Information is gathered during the fall and early winter. The period the data cover varies from table to table.  Degree production (Ph.D., Master’s, and Bachelor’s) and total Bachelor's, Master's and Ph.D. enrollments refer to the previous academic year (2000-2001).  Data for new students in all categories refer to the current academic year (2001-2002). Projected student production and information on faculty salaries and demographics also refer to the current academic year.  Faculty salaries are those effective January 1, 2002. Responses received by January 14, 2002 are included in the tables.

The data were collected from Ph.D.-granting departments only. A total of 215 departments were surveyed, compared with 214 departments last year.  As shown in Figure 1, 173 departments returned their survey forms, for a response rate of 80 percent (compared with 81 percent last year). The return rate of 8 out of 28 (29%) for Computer Engineering (CE) programs is very low, although an improvement over recent years.  We attribute this low response to two factors: 1) many CE programs are part of an ECE department, and they do not keep separate statistics for CE vs. EE; and 2) many of these departments are not aware of the Taulbee Survey or its importance. The response rates for US CS programs (142 of 164, or 87%) was very good, and the 100 percent response rate for Canadian programs is especially gratifying.  We thank all respondents who completed this year’s questionnaire. Departments that participated are listed at the end of this article.

Due to the low return rate for CE, we caution against drawing strong conclusions from the data presented for CE. In our discussion, we will focus on the combined numbers for CS and CE. Because of changes in the departments that respond from one year to the next, we must approach any trend analysis with caution.

Figure 1.  Number of Respondents to Faculty Salary Questions

For more details on how the faculty salary information is to be interpreted, see the article in the January 2002, CRN on Preliminary Taulbee Faculty Salary Data (http://www.cra.org/CRN/issues/0201.pdf).  [Note:  In the printed version of the January article, in Table 1, the column reporting the number of faculty in each category was incorrect (the five entries should have been 563, 761, 832, 1197, and 3353). These have been corrected in the online version of the January CRN. Table 27 in the current edition presents the corrected counts, incorporating numbers from 13 additional departments.

The survey form itself is modified slightly each year to ensure as high a rate of return as possible (by simplifying and clarifying), while continuing to capture the data necessary to understand trends in the discipline and also reflect changing concerns of the computing research community. This year we added three new questions to obtain data previously collected on a separate departmental profiles survey. We decided to move these questions into the Taulbee because 1) the data should be updated annually (the profiles survey is only conducted every 3 years), and 2) the response rate on the profiles survey has historically been low. The three new questions address external research support and graduate student funding (Tables 24-26)

Ph.D. Degree Production and Enrollments (Tables 1-8)

As shown in Table 1, a total of 912 Ph.D. degrees were awarded in 2001 by the 173 responding departments.  As Figure 2 indicates, this is a slight (4%) improvement over last year’s 881, which was the lowest number in more than 10 years.  Note, however, that some of this apparent increase could be due to shifts in the departments that responded to the survey.

The prediction from last year’s survey that 1,144 Ph.D. degrees would be awarded in 2001 was, as usual, overly optimistic, with an “optimism” ratio, defined as the actual over the predicted, being 0.80.  Given next year’s prediction of 1,205 graduates, we predict the actual number will be between 906 and 1,015.

All other numbers indicate a strong growth in the Ph.D. supply in the next few years.  The number who entered Ph.D. programs (Table 5) increased from 2,062 to 2,702 (31%). The number who passed qualifiers (Table 1) increased from 1,119 to 1,244 (11%), and the number who passed their thesis proposal exams (Table 1) increased from 788 to 917 (16%). The total Ph.D. enrollments (Table 6) increased from 7,857 to 8,810 (12%).  Looking beyond our survey results, some CS programs are reporting record numbers of applicants for their Ph.D. programs this year. It seems that the failure of the dot-com boom has convinced many recent Bachelor’s and Master’s degree recipients to return to graduate school.

Table 4 shows area of specialization versus types of first appointments for Ph.D. recipients in 2001. These statistics are also very similar to those from last year. There seems to be a slight shift from core areas of computer science (programming languages and theory) toward more applied areas (scientific computing, graphics, human interface, databases, and information systems), but the large number (202/933) whose specialization is uncategorized makes it risky to draw any strong conclusions.

           Most statistics on gender and ethnicity for Ph.D. students (Tables 2, 3, 7, 8) show remarkably little change from last year.  White and nonresident alien men continue to account for a very large fraction of our Ph.D. production and enrollments.  Women constitute a significant minority (19% of enrollments, 16% of graduates.)  All other underrepresented groups are very small minorities.  As Figure 3 illustrates, we see a continuing increase in the proportion of enrolled Ph.D. students who are nonresident aliens.

Master’s and Bachelor’s Degree Production and Enrollments (Tables 9-16)

            Almost all statistics on Master’s and Bachelor’s programs show major growth. Master’s degrees were awarded to 8,266 students, an increase of 26 percent. Bachelor’s degrees numbered 17,048, an increase of 15 percent.  This year’s Master’s production exceeded the projection from last year’s survey by 31 percent, while Bachelor’s production exceeded projections by 7 percent.  If this trend continues, then next year’s projected production of 18,695 Bachelor’s degrees (Table 11 and Figure 4) and 7,341 Master’s degrees (Table 12) may be too low.

             The number of new undergraduates actually dropped slightly from 23,416 to 23,090 (1%) (see Figure 5), in contrast with significant increases in recent years. As yet, we cannot determine whether this was simply an artifact of the changes in the departments reporting, or the start of a new trend.  Perhaps the decline in the technology industry is making computer science and engineering less alluring to new undergraduates. In addition, some programs may be operating in “saturation” mode, where they simply cannot accept more undergraduate majors given their teaching resources.

        In all other numbers, we see growth in both Bachelor’s and Master’s programs.  New Master’s students (Table 13) increased by 22 percent, total enrollments in Bachelor’s programs increased by 8%, and enrollments in Master’s programs increased by 10%.

Most demographics regarding gender and ethnicity for Bachelor’s and Master’s students show remarkable stability from last year.  As with Ph.D. recipients, the proportion of Master’s degree recipients who are nonresident aliens continually climbs, from 52 percent last year to 57 percent this year.

Faculty Demographics (Tables 17-23)

The total number of faculty increased by 8 percent over the past year to a total of 5,344.  These increases came in all categories, with an especially large (60%) increase in postdocs.  Considering that 140 faculty are reported to have left academia (Table 23), the survey indicates 759 new faculty this year.  Our Ph.D. production shows only 326 graduates taking faculty positions (Table 4).  Some of the new teaching faculty may not have Ph.D. degrees, and some new faculty may have come from nonacademic sources.  There is some influx of existing Ph.D. holders into academia as industrial labs are being downsized and reorganized.

This year’s faculty growth to 5,344 was slightly less than the prediction of 5,465 from last year’s survey. Still, this indicates that departments generally met their faculty recruiting targets. The planned two-year growth rate of 21 percent is the same as last year.  Last year they predicted growing to 5,966 for 2002-2003, but this year they have adjusted the prediction for the same time period to 5,613. Last year we observed that the planned growth targets were unrealistically aggressive, compared with the predicted supply of new Ph.D.s. This year, the combination of increasing supply and decreasing targets makes the recruiting objectives seem more feasible.

Table 23 on faculty “losses” showed that a large number took academic positions elsewhere.  Only 140 (2.6% of total faculty) actually left academia through death, retirement, or taking a nonacademic position. This compares with 115 (2.3% of total faculty) last year. Overall, the rate of departures over the past few years has remained within the very stable range of between 2.3 percent and 2.6 percent.

The demographic data for faculty (Tables 19–22) are very similar to those from last year.  We see that the gender split of new faculty (83% male, 17% female) is very close to the split for new Ph.D. recipients (Table 2).  There is some skew in the distribution, with somewhat more men in tenure-track (85%) and research (87%) positions, and somewhat more women in teaching and other (both 22%) positions, but these numbers are actually somewhat more balanced than in previous years.

It is interesting to compare the ethnicity data for new faculty (Table 20) with that of Ph.D. recipients (Table 3).  Fully 60 percent of the new faculty are white, non-Hispanic, even though only 38 percent of the Ph.D. recipients are in this category.  By contrast, only 17 percent of the new faculty are nonresident aliens, whereas fully 46 percent of the degree recipients are in that category.  Some new faculty could have become residents after receiving their Ph.D. degrees, but it seems clear that proportionately fewer foreign students take positions at U.S. universities.

Research Expenditures and Graduate Student Support (Tables 24-26)

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