Wyoming
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.
Wyoming at China’s rate would graduate 681 engineers a year. It graduates 207.
Wyoming produces 207 engineering and computer science bachelor's degrees a year out of 2,050 total, a mid-pack engineering producer, from 1 institutions. At China's rate it would produce 681. Output is shrinking (-22.8% over three years). Gap Score: 30% of the China benchmark. Its own economy is projected to open 560 engineering, computing and technician jobs a year through 2034; in-state degrees, associate and bachelor's together, cover 54% of them.
The gap against China’s benchmark
Three-year trend: eng+CS share of degrees
Wyoming is missing 473 engineers a year at China's rate, roughly 2x the annual output of University of Wyoming.
Where Wyoming’s engineers are made.
1 institution produces engineering or computer science bachelor’s degrees in Wyoming. The top 1 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 | University of Wyoming | 207 | 10.4% |
Jobs vs. degrees
Wyoming'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 | 80 |
| Software Developers | 80 |
| Computer User Support Specialists | 50 |
| Civil Engineering Technicians | 30 |
| Computer Systems Analysts | 30 |
| Network and Computer Systems Administrators | 30 |
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: Wyoming labor-market projections via Projections Central (U.S. Dept. of Labor).
Nuclear, missiles and gigawatt data centers, one engineering school
Wyoming is hosting a first-of-its-kind reactor in Kemmerer, a $2.6 billion missile rebuild at F.E. Warren and a data-center rush around Cheyenne subsidized by a sales-tax exemption that has already saved operators more than $166 million. It has one engineering college to staff all of it, and that college spent 2025 fighting over a $500,000 budget line.
The drain.
Wyoming's own economists list brain drain as a binding constraint on growth: most University of Wyoming graduates leave, most people born in the state are gone by their thirties, and net in-migration is measured in the low thousands.
Sources: University of Wyoming News (Nov 2024); Harvard Growth Lab (2024); Wyoming Tribune Eagle / Wyoming Economic Analysis Division (Jan 2026)
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 Wyoming.
Tie the data-center exemption to graduates
Wyoming's data-center sales-tax exemption has already forgone $166M+ and asks only for an 'appropriate' number of jobs. Condition the next tier of exemptions on funded Digital ROTC seats at LCCC and Eastern Wyoming College, with tuition covered in exchange for two years of in-state service on the Cheyenne campuses.
Scale the nuclear tech cohort
Western Wyoming CC's $1.9M Wyoming Innovation Partnership program opened with about 15 seats while TerraPower plans 250 permanent staff and the build needs about 1,600 workers at peak. Route WIP and Wyoming Energy Authority dollars into service-for-tuition slots that put Wyoming residents in Kemmerer's training center before out-of-state hires fill it.
Tie Tier-1 engineering funding to staying in Wyoming
Only ~37% of UW graduates remain in Wyoming. Attach a Digital ROTC retention track to the Tier-1 Engineering Initiative and the new School of Computing: full tuition for engineering and CS majors who commit to three years at Sentinel contractors, TerraPower or Wyoming utilities, turning legislative appropriations into graduates who stay.
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 Wyoming, 31% of engineering-track credentials are associate degrees today. Digital ROTC is built to expand that community-college route.