1) The timing of when the term and the push for more "STEM" education got a huge boost and became far more prominent (again—you're right that there was another

1) The timing of when the term and the push for more "STEM" education got a huge boost and became far more prominent (again—you're right that there was another freak-out over science and math education during the space race, fizzling out a bit when it became tied to the disastrous "New Math" approach). Having some insight into the education side of things, the sudden renewed vigor in that movement always struck me as suspicious. 2) The actual outcomes for STEM grads, as covered in this article. Looks like only one of the letters reaped large benefits from the push more more grads in those areas. Surely anyone could have looked at science, engineering, and (non-actually-CS) math and noticed that wages weren't acting like there was a major shortage, back in, say, the '00s and early '10s? But they were in programming. So now we've told a generation of kids there's a bright future in STEM (all four letters!) but it was kiiiinda a lie, and it kiiiinda wasn't hard to see it was a lie back when these kids were in grade school.