Engineering education and the global economy: The search for policy

Engineering education in the United States is confronted with some new realities, both real and perceived. Engineering is increasingly a globally distributed, cooperative activity and the US outsourcing of research, design, manufacturing, and construction overseas is growing. Further, the production of engineers in the United States is falling to around 5-6% of the global supply with clear signs that engineering education is available at lower costs, often far lower, in other countries. Many have viewed this globalization as a competitive situation for engineering education in the United States that we are losing. We will present the view that in terms of the quality of engineering education (which engineering educators can influence) as opposed to the global economy (about which we can do little), engineering education is still very strong in the US and likely to remain that way. However, we will present some recommendations based on our professional responsibilities in running programs in entrepreneurship, leadership, and design. In particular, we will review survey data collected from Penn State engineering graduates over the last decade which helps define new paths for integrating entrepreneurship, leadership and design into the engineering curriculum. We believe that there are some very real ways in which engineering education can, and should be, responding to the new requirements for success in professional engineering careers that derive from national needs as well as from the globalization of engineering.