Model for the Infrastructure of Engineering Education

Abstract

Introduction There are many ways to describe and model physical systems. The infrastructure of engineering education in the United States is an example of such a system, and it is the intent of this report to describe and model this infra~tructure. The means for doing this starts with the graduation statistics for the year 1989 given by the Computer Aided Science Policy Analysis & Research Databa~e System (CASPAR) developed for the National Science Foundation by Quantum Research Corporation [I], and uses a simple categorization for the institutions that contribute to those statistics. This categorization sorts the post -secondary institutions in the United States which enroll engineering students into three types: community colleges (or two year institutions), non-PhD granting institutions (Bachelors and/or Masters engineering degree granting), and PhD engineering degree granting institutions. The intent is to ascertain the contribution of each type of institution to the infrastructure of engineering education.