90% of US STEM Potential Is Wasted, Annually

90% of the available raw STEM human potential in the US is wasted, annually.

The most precious resource of the US economy, in other words, is left massively underutilized.

To use an analogy, imagine we throw away 90% of all food grown in the US, leaving swaths of the population (in the US and abroad) hungry, malnourished, or even starving?

Now imagine the impact of a 10% increase in utilizing human potential, or a 10% reduction in human potential waste.

No doubt the economic and societal bonanza would be far reaching and more transformative than anything we’ve witnessed before.

This is an astronomical economic and societal loss, and one which the Biden Administration ought to address.

How did we compute this figure?

We used KnackApp data on the distribution of STEM human potential in the US by age group, the size of the US population by age groups, and the number of US STEM students earning STEM degrees or certificates in the US every year. (Note that foreign students account for 20% of STEM degree earners in the US, annually).