Why Is Computer Science Important?

Computer science is one of the few policy issues that can address both foundational education needs and workforce development demands for a state’s future workforce. CS is foundational in the current technological age. Every 21st century student should have the opportunity to learn about the technology that touches every area of their life as well as being one of the fastest growing and highest paying career paths.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of resources within most schools, students are not provided access to explore the world of CS. This limits student participation in CS and prevents the equipping of this critical foundational knowledge for our future workforce.

Learning computer science (CS) matters. The solutions of tomorrow will involve technology in some way, making CS important to every industry.

Computer Science (CS) is vital. However, currently, there are more than 500,000 open computing jobs (NCES 2015). This number is not improving fast enough, 91% of parents want their children to study CS (Gallup 2016) but right now only 35% of schools teach CS (CSTA 2018).

The technology industry is growing faster than ever.

  • By 2020, 1,000,000 technology jobs will go unfilled (BLS).
  • FOUR in FIVE science, technology, engineering, and mathematics professionals choose their career in high school or earlier.
  • Less than 26% of the computing workforce are female (NCWIT 2018).
  • 74% of young girls express interest in STEM fields and computer science but by the time they make decisions about what to study and where to start their careers, something happens (Girls Who Code).
  • Less than 15% of the computing workforce are minorities.
  • Computing occupations makeup 58% of all projected new jobs in STEM fields (BLS).
  • Only 10% of STEM graduates study CS (NCES 2017).
  • A CS major can earn 40% more than the college average (The Hamilton Project).

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