North Dakota
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.
North Dakota at China’s rate would graduate 2,002 engineers a year. It graduates 687.
North Dakota produces 687 engineering and computer science bachelor's degrees a year out of 6,030 total, a mid-pack engineering producer, from 8 institutions. At China's rate it would produce 2,002. Output is growing (+7.2% over three years). Gap Score: 34% of the China benchmark. Its own economy is projected to open 870 engineering, computing and technician jobs a year through 2034; in-state degrees, associate and bachelor's together, cover 86% of them.
The gap against China’s benchmark
Three-year trend: eng+CS share of degrees
North Dakota is missing 1,315 engineers a year at China's rate, roughly 3x the annual output of North Dakota State University-Main Campus.
Where North Dakota’s engineers are made.
8 institutions produce engineering or computer science bachelor’s degrees in North Dakota. The top 8 account for 100% of output.
Every producing institution. Circle area = eng+CS bachelor’s degrees per year
Top producers
| # | Institution | Eng+CS / yr | % of its degrees |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | North Dakota State University-Main Campus | 381 | 17.9% |
| 2 | University of North Dakota | 223 | 11.9% |
| 3 | University of Mary | 31 | 5.7% |
| 4 | Bismarck State College | 15 | 23.2% |
| 5 | University of Jamestown | 15 | 8.0% |
| 6 | Minot State University | 12 | 2.6% |
| 7 | Dickinson State University | 5 | 2.2% |
| 8 | Valley City State University | 5 | 1.9% |
Jobs vs. degrees
North Dakota'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 |
|---|---|
| Civil Engineers | 110 |
| Software Developers | 100 |
| Computer User Support Specialists | 80 |
| Computer Occupations, All Other | 70 |
| Mechanical Engineers | 60 |
| Civil Engineering Technicians | 40 |
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: North Dakota labor-market projections via Projections Central (U.S. Dept. of Labor).
AI data centers, a drone park, a delayed gas plant
North Dakota has no fab or battery megaproject. Its largest engineering projects are Applied Digital's AI campuses, the Grand Forks UAS cluster and a $2.8B gas-to-liquids plant that keeps slipping, backed by a sales-tax exemption worth ~$41M a year and $134.9M of state UAS money. The state graduates about 700 engineers and computer scientists a year.
The drain.
North Dakota keeps most of the students it raises, but the college graduates who leave are more educated than the ones who arrive, and the state's paid recruitment campaign has moved only dozens of people.
Sources: Wisconsin Policy Forum via WPR; NDSU Career and Advising Center; North Dakota Monitor
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 North Dakota.
Spend the Career Builders money
ND Career Builders offers up to $17,000 in scholarship or loan repayment for high-need occupations, matched dollar for dollar by employers, and its scholarship recipients show an 89% in-state retention rate. Yet only $4.0M of the $17.3M appropriated since 2019 had been spent by mid-2024. A Digital ROTC track would convert the unspent balance into service-for-tuition seats in engineering and computing at NDUS campuses, with employer matches from the data-center and UAS firms.
Tie the tax break to the pipeline
The data-center sales-tax exemption cost about $40.9M in a single year and carries no workforce condition. Requiring operators like Applied Digital to fund service-for-tuition cohorts at Bismarck State, NDSCS and NDSU in return for the exemption would tie the subsidy to engineers who owe North Dakota two years of work.
Grow the two-year on-ramp
Associate degrees are only 9% of the state's engineering and computing output even as Bismarck State's polytechnic enrollment sets records. Digital ROTC service-for-tuition at BSC and NDSCS, feeding UND and NDSU engineering, would raise the count from ~700 graduates a year and keep them in a state with the largest net brain drain of adults 31-40 in the nation.
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 North Dakota, 9% of engineering-track credentials are associate degrees today. Digital ROTC is built to expand that community-college route.