Double the number of American engineers
America awards 222,848 engineering and computer science bachelor’s degrees a year. That is 12.3 percent of all bachelor’s degrees, about the share engineering alone held in 1950.
China’s rate is 33.2 percent. At China’s rate, America would graduate 380,847 more engineers every year. Only one state, Maryland, reaches even half of China’s rate. See your state’s number.
The SI Service Corps closes that gap with Digital ROTC. Federal student loans that cover two years of engineering, computer science, or cybersecurity school at a community college, whether those years end in an associate degree or transfer into a bachelor’s program. The loans are forgiven in full after 24 to 36 months of service in government technology roles. It applies the GI Bill model to the engineering workforce.
What it does
1. Brings Americans into the new SI economy. Every graduate earns a degree in the field that builds superintelligence.
2. Makes American workers the world leaders in SI. Doubling our engineers takes America from 12.3 percent of degrees to about 24.5 percent, close to South Korea (25.8 percent) and Germany (27.7 percent).
3. Powers up the federal government’s SI capabilities. Graduates serve inside agencies and build systems the government owns.
4. Targets $80 to $100 billion a year in savings. Washington spends about $793 billion a year on contracts. Contractors cost the government 1.83 times what federal employees cost for comparable work, and agencies report spending about 80 percent of the $102 billion federal IT budget on running existing systems.
The ask
Launch the SI Service Corps and double the number of American engineers.
The country has done this before. The Morrill Act, ROTC, the GI Bill and the National Defense Education Act each paid for education to make the nation stronger, and several required service in return. Read the history.