Degrees of Risk: STEM Is Bearing Less Fruit

Degrees of Risk: STEM Is Bearing Less Fruit

When I began my work at AEI seven years ago, my first report was entitled, STEM Without Fruit: How Noncognitive Skills Improve Workforce Outcomes. The underlying thesis of that report was that we had gone too far in promoting education, training, and credentials—including college degrees—that focused on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), when employers were clearly signaling that soft and noncognitive skills were the attributes m…