I’ve often cited data from NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a widely-respected organization that tracks the salaries of new graduates. I believe most universities are members. It has always shown in the past few years that Computer Science graduate salaries have basically been flat — up 2% one year, down 3% the next. But the current figures show the biggest one-year change I can ever recall seeing — and it is downward.
The 2014 mean starting salary for new CS bachelor’s degree grads was $67,300, according to NACE. But the organization’s projection for 2015 is only $61,287. If that projection holds, it will be a drop of 9%.
Yet the tech industry continues to say, “We’re desperate to hire.” And Congress continues to believe them; so does President Obama.
As I’ve said, the new grads still have it pretty good. No, they are NOT all immediately being snapped up by employers, but their situation is still far better than those who are 10 or 15 years out of school. I’ve written about this many times, but I direct your attention to an article in Venturebeat, sarcastically titled “Disposable Employees May Be the Tech Industry’s Greatest Achievement.” Lots of interesting layoff data in there.
The industry would counter, of course, that those being laid off don’t have the background to work on the latest technology. I’ve explained before why that’s a red herring — the short answer is that if only young new grads have that background, how is it that they acquired that knowledge from old guys like me? — but again, Congress believes it (or claims to).
