John King, delegated deputy secretary of education, and Lisa Gelobter, a senior advisor and member of President Obama’s U.S. Digital Service, will join tech leaders and computer science students in celebration of Computer Science Education Week Wednesday at McKinley Technology Education Campus in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Department of Education, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation are raising awareness this week about the need to ensure more students can benefit from expanded educational opportunity through computer science.
As part of this awareness effort, King and Gelobter will join Abigail Seldin, a leader in the education technology field, to share expert technical insight about the creation and launch of College Scorecard, which provides the clearest, most accessible and most reliable national data on college cost, graduation, debt and post-college earnings and Pell Abacus, a free, mobile-friendly college search tool designed to help low-income students understand their full range of financial aid options.
Pell Abacus is the first consumer technology to launch with fully integrated data from the College Scorecard. King will also encourage students to continue to pursue their interest in computer science and use the tools showcased at the event to learn more about their college opportunities.
Computer Science Education Week is Dec. 7-13. By 2020, 51 percent of STEM jobs are projected to be in computer science related fields. If current trends continue, 1.4 million computer science-related jobs will be available over the next 10 years, but only 400,000 computer science graduates will be added with the skills to apply for those jobs. Thankfully, enrollment in freshman computer science courses increased dramatically over the past five years indicating student interest in these courses. According to the Computing Research Association’s annual report, annual enrollments in freshman computer science courses at Ph.D.-granting institutions rose 29 percent from 2012-2013. Computer Science graduates have the second highest starting salaries of any major at $61,287.