Over-encouragement of choosing a STEM education to secure a successful career has adversely affected the job market, making it oversaturated with STEM graduates. This cycle of encouragement begins in early education and continues through high school honor societies, scholarship opportunities and career fairs, despite STEM employment being significantly higher than non-STEM employment.
As students begin to narrow their educational focus during high school, the prevalence of STEM-exclusive opportunities arises. For instance, the national Math Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta, had more than 2,200 chapters, circa 2015. Meanwhile, the English Honor Society has only about 1,250 chapters as of 2024 — demonstrating a disparity in funding and curated interest and insinuating English is a lower-valued subject.
Then, once high school students start applying to colleges, they also hunt for scholarships, where another disparity between STEM and non-STEM lies. About 17 percent of STEM-interested students receive scholarships, compared to 12.1 percent of non-STEM-interested students, according to a fact sheet published by Search Logistics. Additionally, more than 33 percent of private scholarships are awarded to students in STEM fields.
Due to the preference for STEM students, applicants who rely on scholarships to fund their college education are often encouraged to apply to these programs to increase their chances of receiving money. This pushes students away from non-STEM options based on the tangible financial benefits of STEM in college, regardless of their personal interests.
Even in college, STEM and non-STEM majors do not receive equal opportunities. For example, the event page on Handshake for Binghamton University’s recent Fall 2025 Job and Internship Fair stated, “All Binghamton University students in all majors and all class years are welcome and encouraged to attend.”
However, of all the organizations present, only one of them was largely related to the arts: Binghamton Sound, Staging and Lighting. Excluding governmental, law, education and business organizations, which I have put aside due to their mix of STEM and non-STEM attributes, 55.7 percent of organizations listed on the fair’s attending employers sheet sought Engineering, Sciences or Healthcare students.
After attending this event, I left feeling demoralized, believing that my majors had left me with no career path. As such, STEM-dominated career fairs like this unfairly obscure career opportunities for non-STEM students and promote the notion that only STEM fields will be lucrative upon graduation.
The Fleishman Career Center website also advertises that the top employers of their graduates are in the fields of technology, medicine, banking or other STEM fields. By highlighting the same types of companies that appeared at the career fair, University STEM programs garner higher enrollment due to the promise of securing these jobs after graduation.
Despite this type of promotion, STEM bachelor’s degree holders aged 25-29 averaged 3.2 percent unemployment, compared to 2.9 of all bachelor’s degree holders, according to 2018 report published by the National Center for Education Statistics. Moreover, when looking at employment rates of graduate occupations with a bachelor’s degree or higher, the non-STEM employment rate has increased by 2.1 percent. STEM has only increased by 0.3 percent between 2011 and 2019.
Considering this, the employment outcomes between the two are not substantial enough to warrant the rigorous push for students to pursue a STEM career path for fear of unemployment.
This cycle of promoting STEM students subsequently churns out STEM graduates that “dominate much of the policy discussion, [but] they have a small proportion of the jobs for college grads,” according to an article from the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.
Even so, STEM majors have been on the rise since 2011-12, with 287,415 students enrolled in STEM programs during that year and 437,834 students in 2020-21, according to the Digest of Education Statistics. This makes up about 16 and 21 percent of total students, respectively. Conversely, non-STEM majors have been decreasing since 2011-12, with 543,466 students enrolled and 482,970 students in 2020-21, or about 30 and 23 percent. Non-STEM majors included in this discussion span more fields than STEM, resulting in a larger percentage of total students.
Funding both influences and is influenced by these numbers. As it stands, the National Endowment for the Humanities appropriated $207 million in 2024, while the National Science Foundation appropriated $9.06 billion in 2024.
This tangibly enforces the unequal access and opportunities for interest discovery, community-based learning, scholarships and perceived employment opportunities.
Although the NEH covers only the humanities, not all non-STEM options, the discrepancy of billions of dollars between NEH’s approval and NSF’s approval in funds reflects and reinforces the education system’s preference for STEM. This tangibly enforces the unequal access and opportunities for discovery of interest, community-based learning, scholarships and perceived employment opportunities dissected above.
Furthermore, the current, incessant push for STEM throughout a student’s academic career diminishes their opportunity for discovering other passions, reinforces the perceived financial benefit of STEM majors and oversaturates the job market. To break the cycle of unequal opportunity and reduce the narrative of STEM’s superiority, funding, enrollment, scholarships and encouragement all must rise for non-STEM programs, allowing all students to flourish and feel confident in their futures.
Allison Bonaventura is a sophomore double-majoring in comparative literature and anthropology.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.