Source: IPEDS Completions, 3-yr avg AY 2022–25 (NCES; 2024–25 provisional), bachelor’s degrees, CIP 14 + 11; China 33.2%: PRC Ministry of Education, 2022 bachelor’s graduates by discipline (NSF NCSES S&E Indicators Fig. HED-30: 32.8%, 2020); Ohio population: Census NST-EST2025 (Vintage 2025).
Ohio has committed more than $3 billion in taxpayer incentives to projects that need engineers: Intel’s fabs, Anduril’s Arsenal-1, Honda’s Fayette County battery plant, which now makes energy-storage cells rather than EV batteries. But only 11.7% of Ohio’s graduates finish in engineering or computer science, below the national average of 12.3% and about a third of China’s 33.2%.
To match the China benchmark, Ohio would need 13,808 more engineering and CS graduates per year. Ohio’s own labor projections tell the nearer-term story: 14,360 engineering, computing and technician openings a year through 2034 against 8,611 associate and bachelor’s graduates. The state’s colleges cover 60% of the jobs it is already creating, a shortfall of roughly 5,700 a year before Intel or Anduril hire anyone. Output is also flat: down 0.7% from 2022–23 to 2024–25, while the country’s rose about 8%. Source: IPEDS Completions, 3-year average (AY 2022–23 through 2024–25; 2024–25 provisional), CIP 14 + 11, first majors; bachelor’s degrees only for the benchmark gap, associate + bachelor’s for the jobs-coverage figure, since technician openings are the two-year tier.
60 institutions produce engineering or CS bachelor’s graduates in Ohio. The top 8 account for 75% of output, and the pipeline below them is thin.
| Institution | Eng+CS / yr | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Ohio State University | 1,872 | 16.5% |
| University of Cincinnati | 1,309 | 20.5% |
| Case Western Reserve | 487 | 35.0% |
| University of Toledo | 457 | 18.9% |
| Miami University–Oxford | 447 | 10.8% |
| University of Akron | 410 | 21.2% |
| University of Dayton | 394 | 20.1% |
| Cleveland State | 301 | 14.1% |
Ohio has spent billions in incentives to attract megaprojects that need engineers, while its own output of engineers has stalled.
The state already opens 14,360 engineering, computing and technician jobs a year and graduates 8,611. The rest have to be filled from outside the state’s colleges.
Ohio also loses many of the engineers it educates to other states.
Economists on the Ohio Capital Journal’s 2024 panel argued that skilled immigration was masking the outflow of educated native-born Ohioans, offsetting the loss without fixing it. And economists quoted by the Ohio Capital Journal warn the causality runs both ways: a January 2026 analysis argued Ohio “spends billions to create jobs” while the lack of high-paying jobs keeps pushing young graduates out.
Reporters already cover this, but no one has combined it into a single number the way the Index does.
Ohio has already shown the model works but has not funded it at scale.
Columbus State’s one-year semiconductor technician certificate is a model for the rest of the country, with credits that stack and transfer. But associate-level credentials are only 12% of Ohio’s engineering pipeline. A Digital ROTC cohort model, service for tuition, could triple it using the community colleges and universities Ohio already has.
Ohio attached almost no workforce-supply conditions to $3B+ in megaproject incentives. Every future deal should include matching money to train the engineers it will need.
Ohio loses 12% of its graduates net. Service-linked tuition forgiveness, the ROTC model, is the only retention tool with a track record: you study in Ohio on the state’s money, and you owe Ohio the first years of your career.
Ohio is one of 51. The American Engineering Gap Index measures every state against the same benchmark, from Maryland at 20.9% to the District of Columbia at 6.3%, and only one of them reaches even half of China’s rate.