Washington
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.
Washington at China’s rate would graduate 10,893 engineers a year. It graduates 5,133.
Washington produces 5,133 engineering and computer science bachelor's degrees a year out of 32,810 total, one of America's strongest engineering producers, from 36 institutions. At China's rate it would produce 10,893. Output is growing (+6.1% over three years). Gap Score: 47% of the China benchmark. Its own economy is projected to open 23,660 engineering, computing and technician jobs a year through 2034; in-state degrees, associate and bachelor's together, cover 27% of them.
The gap against China’s benchmark
Three-year trend: eng+CS share of degrees
Washington is missing 5,760 engineers a year at China's rate, roughly 3x the annual output of University of Washington-Seattle Campus.
Where Washington’s engineers are made.
36 institutions produce engineering or computer science bachelor’s degrees in Washington. The top 8 account for 82% of output.
Every producing institution. Circle area = eng+CS bachelor’s degrees per year
Top producers
| # | Institution | Eng+CS / yr | % of its degrees |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | University of Washington-Seattle Campus | 1,941 | 22.7% |
| 2 | Washington State University | 785 | 14.2% |
| 3 | University of Washington-Bothell Campus | 391 | 25.0% |
| 4 | University of Washington-Tacoma Campus | 342 | 24.7% |
| 5 | Western Washington University | 213 | 6.9% |
| 6 | Central Washington University | 182 | 8.6% |
| 7 | Eastern Washington University | 179 | 9.8% |
| 8 | Gonzaga University | 159 | 13.3% |
Jobs vs. degrees
Washington'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 and Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers | 8,670 |
| Computer User Support Specialists | 1,810 |
| Web Developers and Digital Interface Designers | 1,700 |
| Computer Systems Analysts | 1,660 |
| Computer Occupations, All Other | 1,170 |
| Civil Engineers | 1,030 |
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: Washington labor-market projections via Projections Central (U.S. Dept. of Labor).
Washington subsidized servers and hydrogen, then lost the engineers anyway
Washington's largest public commitments of the decade were a rural data-center tax break worth nearly half a billion dollars, a $1B federal hydrogen hub, and Boeing's Everett rebuild. The tax break bought few permanent jobs, the hub was canceled, and Microsoft and Amazon cut more than 5,000 Washington jobs while the state's engineering output barely moved.
The drain.
Washington keeps the graduates it produces, but it produces far too few of them: its own business roundtable projects homegrown grads will fill barely a fifth of bachelor's-level openings this decade, and the in-migration that covered the rest is slowing.
Sources: Washington Roundtable; UW IAE; Seattle Times/Census; OFM
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 Washington.
Fund the Allen School to 1,000 degrees
UW's Allen School got 8,048 direct-admit applications for 2024-25 and admitted 8%, only 29% of Washington applicants, and its own report to the Legislature calls that far too low. The state funded 820 degrees a year with a $6M proviso; a Digital ROTC service-for-tuition track would fund the next tranche of seats and bind graduates to Washington employers for the years the state paid for.
Tie the data-center break to seats
The server tax exemption cost $474M+ through 2023 and produced 417 Microsoft data-center jobs. Any exemption the Legislature keeps should require recipients to fund engineering-technology and cloud-infrastructure cohorts at the state's community and technical colleges in Grant County and other host counties, with Digital ROTC service commitments attached to the seats.
Convert in-state stickiness into supply
71% of employed UW graduates stay in the Puget Sound counties, so Washington's problem is how few engineers it produces: homegrown grads cover 155,000 of 686,000 bachelor's-level openings this decade. Layer Digital ROTC service-for-tuition onto the Washington College Grant at the community and technical colleges and WSU, so transfer engineering pathways grow while the retention advantage the state already enjoys is locked in by contract.
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 Washington, 20% of engineering-track credentials are associate degrees today. Digital ROTC is built to expand that community-college route.