West Virginia

2,353

engineers a year
at China’s rate

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.

← #41 South Carolina#42 of 51#43 Mississippi →

West Virginia at China’s rate would graduate 3,213 engineers a year. It graduates 860.

West Virginia produces 860 engineering and computer science bachelor's degrees a year out of 9,678 total, among the weakest engineering producers in the country, from 15 institutions. At China's rate it would produce 3,213. Output is shrinking (-13.7% over three years). Gap Score: 27% of the China benchmark. Its own economy is projected to open 1,560 engineering, computing and technician jobs a year through 2034; in-state degrees, associate and bachelor's together, cover 70% of them.

Engineering + CS share of bachelor’s degrees

8.9%

Below the national 12.3%; 27% of the way to China’s 33.2%.

Missing engineers a year at China’s rate

2,353

1,559 at a conservative 25%, and 1,075 at 20%.

Three-year trend, share of degrees

9.58.98.2

Output down 13.7% in degrees, 2022-23 to 2024-25.

National rank by share

#42

of 51 by share; #35 per capita, 133 missing engineers per 100k residents (pop. 1.8M).

What they study

57% eng

43% computer science. 22% of the state’s eng+CS output is at the associate level, the two-year pathway.

Job openings a year, engineers + computing + technicians

1,560

70% covered by the state’s own degrees, all levels; #15 of 51 on coverage.

The gap against China’s benchmark

West Virginia, today8.9%

United States, today12.3%

China benchmark33.2%

2,353 missing engineering and CS bachelor’s degrees a year at China’s 33.2% rate.

Three-year trend: eng+CS share of degrees

2022–232023–242024–25

West Virginia is missing 2,353 engineers a year at China's rate, roughly 4x the annual output of West Virginia University.

Where West Virginia’s engineers are made.

15 institutions produce engineering or computer science bachelor’s degrees in West Virginia. The top 8 account for 96% of output.

Every producing institution. Circle area = eng+CS bachelor’s degrees per year

West Virginia University alone is 70% of the state's output.Swipe the map →

Top producers

#	Institution	Eng+CS / yr	% of its degrees
1	West Virginia University	603	14.3%
2	Marshall University	101	7.2%
3	West Virginia University Institute of Technology	46	29.4%
4	Shepherd University	27	5.2%
5	Fairmont State University	20	3.9%
6	Concord University	11	3.8%
7	Salem University	10	11.0%
8	West Virginia Wesleyan College	8	4.5%

Top 8 shown = 96% of state output. 7 more institutions produce the remaining 4%, all shown on the map. Bachelor's degrees, matching the state totals above. IPEDS Completions C2023–C2025, first majors; 3-yr average.

Jobs vs. degrees

West Virginia'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

Job openings per year (growth + replacement)1,560

Eng + CS degrees produced per year (associate + bachelor’s)1,096

of which net new jobs per year (growth only)216

Where the openings are

Occupation	Openings / yr
Computer Occupations, All Other	260
Software Developers	210
Computer User Support Specialists	140
Civil Engineers	90
Computer Systems Analysts	80
Network and Computer Systems Administrators	70

Coverage: degrees ÷ openings

70%

of West Virginia's projected openings are covered by its own degrees. Rank #15 of 51; U.S.: 54%. Demand: 88 openings per 100k residents (U.S.: 143).

West Virginia's colleges cover 70% of the engineering, computing and technician jobs its economy opens every year. The other 464 a year, about half the annual output of West Virginia University, must be imported, retrained, or left unfilled.

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: West Virginia labor-market projections via Projections Central (U.S. Dept. of Labor).

West Virginia's new plants need engineers its schools produce fewer of

West Virginia is counting on a large steel mill, an iron-air battery factory at the former Weirton steel site, and a wave of data-center projects that followed a 2025 law. Its engineering degree output fell about 14 percent over the same stretch.

Nucor Steel, Apple Grove, Mason County

$4B

Nucor's $4 billion sheet mill, the company's largest, is on track to finish by end of 2026 and ramp through 2027 and into 2028, with roughly $950 million of Nucor capital spending on the site in 2026 alone. By September 2025 the mill had hired 350 people toward jobs averaging $85,000 a year, and executives call the 3 million-ton plant's jobs generational.

Herald-Dispatch; WV MetroNews

Form Energy, Weirton

750 jobs

The iron-air battery startup chose the shuttered Weirton steel site for a $760 million factory promising 750 jobs, backed by $290 million in planned state incentives including $75 million from the state Economic Development Authority to buy the 55-acre site. In February 2025 the company restructured, cutting under 5 percent of a workforce that then stood at just over 350, less than half the promised total.

Canary Media; The Intelligencer

Data centers under HB 2014, Mason and Tucker counties

1.3 GW

The 2025 microgrid law HB 2014 stripped local zoning and noise control over data centers and routes 70 percent of their tax revenue to the state. At least five large-scale projects followed, led by the 2,000-acre Monarch Compute Campus near Point Pleasant, starting at 1.3 gigawatts with potential for 8, which Nscale says will bring about 700 permanent jobs from late 2027, and Fundamental Data's 750 MW Ridgeline microgrid in Tucker County, where residents are fighting for basic project details.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting

The drain.

West Virginia produces few engineers and keeps even fewer graduates of any kind. The state now pays outsiders to move in while two thirds of its own new degree holders work somewhere else.

Grads still in WV

~1 in 3

share of 2023 bachelor's graduates working in state two years later, per the WV Higher Education Policy Commission via Mountain State Spotlight, 2026

WVU cuts

28 majors

programs eliminated with more than 140 faculty positions at the flagship in 2023, West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Paid to move in

~1,000

people relocated by the Ascend WV $12,000 remote-worker incentive across six communities since 2021, WV MetroNews, 2025

Sources: Mountain State Spotlight; WV Higher Education Policy Commission; West Virginia Public Broadcasting; WV MetroNews

Who’s covering it.

Reporters already cover this, but no one has combined it into a single number the way the Index does.

OutletStoryWhat it covers

Mountain State Spotlight

These young West Virginians want to build careers in the state. A lack of good jobs is forcing them to look elsewhere.

Jul 2026. Reports that only about one in three 2023 bachelor's grads were working in West Virginia two years later, told through students who want to stay but see no path.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting

As Data Centers Eye W.Va., Local Communities Feel Overlooked

Aug 2026. Details how HB 2014 stripped local control as at least five giant data-center campuses advance, the state's biggest new source of technical-infrastructure jobs.

Herald-Dispatch

Nucor on track to finish WV mill this year

Jun 2026. The $4 billion Apple Grove mill, Nucor's largest ever, finishes in 2026 and ramps through 2028, putting its full staffing demand on the state's thin technical pipeline.

WV MetroNews

Nucor Steel to begin hiring soon for entry-level positions

Sep 2025. With 350 hired and the mill 60 percent built, Nucor opens an entry-level pool at $85,000 average pay, jobs the company calls generational if West Virginians can fill them.

The Intelligencer

Restructuring Affects Some Workers at Form Energy's Weirton Plant

Feb 2025. The battery factory that promised 750 jobs cut staff at just over 350, a reminder that subsidized megaprojects can falter before the promised payrolls arrive.

WV MetroNews

Charleston added to Ascend WV program

Sep 2025. The state expands its $12,000 pay-people-to-move-here program to the capital, importing talent while its own graduates leave for lack of comparable offers.

The fix, in West Virginia.

Tie incentives to pipeline seats

West Virginia handed Form Energy a $290 million incentive package and is backing a $4 billion Nucor mill with state support. Every future deal of that size should carry a Digital ROTC clause: funded service-for-tuition seats at nearby community and technical colleges, with the graduates committed to the plant that triggered the subsidy.

Offer Ascend payments to West Virginia graduates

Ascend WV pays outsiders $12,000 to relocate, and about 1,000 have come. Offer the same money as service-for-tuition debt relief to WVU, Marshall and WVU Tech engineering and CS graduates who sign multi-year commitments with Nucor, Form Energy or the data-center operators, and the state keeps talent it already trained.

Rebuild the flagship pipeline

WVU cut 28 majors and more than 140 faculty in 2023 even as megaprojects broke ground. A Digital ROTC compact, employers and the state co-funding tuition in exchange for in-state service, gives WVU and Marshall a demand signal to grow engineering seats instead of shrinking them.

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 West Virginia, 22% of engineering-track credentials are associate degrees today. Digital ROTC is built to expand that community-college route.

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