Indiana
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); Population: Census NST-EST2025.
Indiana at China’s rate would graduate 14,294 engineers a year. It graduates 6,680.
Indiana produces 6,680 engineering and computer science bachelor's degrees a year out of 43,054 total, one of America's strongest engineering producers, from 38 institutions. At China's rate it would produce 14,294. Output is growing (+14.8% over three years). Gap Score: 47% of the China benchmark. Its own economy is projected to open 8,030 engineering, computing and technician jobs a year through 2034; in-state degrees, associate and bachelor's together, cover 92% of them.
The gap against China’s benchmark
Three-year trend: eng+CS share of degrees
Indiana is missing 7,614 engineers a year at China's rate, roughly 2x the annual output of Purdue University-Main Campus.
Where Indiana’s engineers are made.
38 institutions produce engineering or computer science bachelor’s degrees in Indiana. The top 8 account for 89% of output.
Every producing institution. Circle area = eng+CS bachelor’s degrees per year
Top producers
| # | Institution | Eng+CS / yr | % of its degrees |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Purdue University-Main Campus | 3,634 | 38.5% |
| 2 | Indiana University-Bloomington | 505 | 6.5% |
| 3 | University of Notre Dame | 488 | 21.5% |
| 4 | Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology | 417 | 94.4% |
| 5 | Indiana University-Indianapolis | 394 | 10.5% |
| 6 | Purdue University Northwest | 180 | 14.9% |
| 7 | Trine University | 162 | 33.7% |
| 8 | Purdue University Fort Wayne | 139 | 13.5% |
Jobs vs. degrees
Indiana's own labor-market projection, 2024–2034, for engineers, computer occupations and engineering technicians, against the degrees the state produces at every level.
Openings against output
Where the openings are
| Occupation | Openings / yr |
|---|---|
| Software Developers | 900 |
| Industrial Engineers | 810 |
| Computer User Support Specialists | 740 |
| Computer Systems Analysts | 700 |
| Mechanical Engineers | 560 |
| Computer Network Support Specialists | 420 |
Coverage: degrees ÷ openings
Openings are the state labor agency’s own 10-year projection: new jobs plus replacing workers who retire or leave the field (BLS method). Not every opening goes to a new graduate, so this is a coverage measure; it does not count vacant positions. Occupations: engineers (SOC 17-2), computer occupations (SOC 15-12) and engineering technicians (SOC 17-3, the associate-degree tier), the jobs CIP 14 + 11 degrees feed; degrees here include associate degrees to match. Source: Indiana labor-market projections via Projections Central (U.S. Dept. of Labor).
Indiana's incentives for chips, pharma and data centers
Indiana has drawn a $3.87B HBM packaging fab at Purdue's doorstep, an $18B-plus Lilly campus and a $10B Meta campus at LEAP, and more than $13B of Amazon data centers in St. Joseph County. Purdue turns out engineers at scale; the open question is whether the state's incentives keep them here.
The drain.
Indiana produces more engineers than its size would predict, then loses most of them: fewer than four in ten engineering graduates are working in the state a year out, and only about half of all bachelor's graduates stay in the state.
Sources: InContext (Indiana Business Research Center); Inside Indiana Business on CHE report; Indiana Citizen / Public News Service on Strada report; Indiana Public Media on outcomes-based funding
Who’s covering it.
Reporters already cover this, but no one has combined it into a single number the way the Index does.
The fix, in Indiana.
Tie chip subsidies to Hoosier hires
IEDC's $554.7M in tax rebates for SK hynix and the 50-year data center exemption carry no in-state graduate hiring targets. Condition future performance payments on a share of engineering hires coming from Purdue, Ivy Tech and Indiana State via Digital ROTC service-for-tuition cohorts.
Fund service-for-tuition at Ivy Tech
AWS and Google already run technician cohorts with Ivy Tech; the state can scale that into paid, tuition-covered two-year tracks in packaging, controls and data center operations, with a Hoosier service commitment at LEAP, New Carlisle or West Lafayette on graduation.
Pay Purdue for keeping engineers in state
Outcomes-based funding scored graduate retention at just 21% of goal statewide in 2025. Weight that metric for engineering, and route Digital ROTC stipends to Purdue engineers who sign on with in-state employers, aimed at the 39% one-year retention rate.
What Digital ROTC would fund
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. In Indiana, 9% of engineering-track credentials are associate degrees today. Digital ROTC is built to expand that community-college route.