The total annual research expenditures for engineering colleges in the US reached five billion dollars in AY2004-05. The graph below shows the research expenditure trends since AY1980-81. The increase over 24 years of 510% is impressive; in deflated currency, the increase is only 170%.

The present report summarizes data reported by engineering colleges and includes expenditures for individual engineering disciplines. The data are also presented in the form of expenditures per faculty member and, since the expenditures are primarily for graduate research, in the form of average expenditures per master's and per doctoral degree.

Research Expenditures in Engineering Disciplines

The expenditure trends for thirteen engineering disciplines are shown in the graph below. Data for "computer" include computer engineering and computer science within engineering colleges in the universities surveyed. Most of the discipline data are from individual engineering departments. For departments with more than one discipline program (e.g., civil and environmental engineering or aerospace and mechanical engineering), the expenditures are often reported as a total. Thus, the expenditures for the "traditional" disciplines (e.g., civil or mechanical engineering) may be enhanced, resulting in the expenditures for the "included" disciplines being reduced. The magnitudes of such effects are not known and probably vary with the individual engineering disciplines being considered.

The trend for engineering as a whole is worthy of mention. Annual growth in the 1980s was high and declined substantially for most of the 1990s. Near the end of the 1990s, the rate increased significantly. The very slight decline in the growth rate shown for AY2004-05 may be due to the decline in master's enrollments and the slowing of doctoral enrollment growth.

The trends for the individual engineering disciplines vary widely. Significant growth is shown for only biomedical engineering and bioengineering, assuming that the AY2003-04 data point for the latter was spurious. Almost all of the other disciplines show slight to seriously declining trends.

Research Expenditures per Faculty Member

Research expenditures per faculty member are shown for engineering as a whole as well as for the thirteen individual disciplines included in the study.

For the period shown in the graph above, average research expenditures per engineering faculty member increased continuously from about $52k to $266k.

This 24-year increase of 410% is noteworthy. However, in deflated currency, the increase over this period is only 124%, an average annual growth rate of only about 3.4%. Currency inflation plus increasing numbers of engineering faculty have impacted substantially the growth of research expenditures per faculty member in the past quarter century.

Biomedical, materials and nuclear engineering and bioengineering research expenditures per faculty member currently exceed that of overall engineering. "Computer" and mechanical engineering are somewhat lower than the engineering average and industrial and petroleum engineering are significantly lower. Some of the statistical scatter in the graph above results from the "academic size" of some disciplines as well as scatter in both research expenditure and faculty data.

Average Research Expenditures for Master's and Doctoral Degrees

The slope of a line through a graph of research expenditures per faculty member versus doctoral degrees per faculty member yields the average expenditure per doctoral degree for those engineering colleges providing data. Such a plot for AY2004-05 is shown below.

The intercept on the vertical axis, average expenditures per faculty member for non-doctoral degrees, when divided by the number of master's degrees per faculty member in the engineering colleges, provides the average expenditure per master's degree. Since the intercept probably includes expenditures for activities other than master's degree research (e.g., undergraduate research), the expenditures per master's degree derived from the intercept should be considered to be an "upper limit".

The graph shown below summarizes the changes in average research expenditures per graduate engineering degree since AY1990-91. The expenditures presented are in inflated currency. The significant decline for doctoral degree expenditures in AY2004-05 appears to exceed the typical scatter in these data. AY2005-06 data, when available, will indicate whether a new trend has developed.

Research Expenditures for Master's and Doctoral Degrees in Selected Engineering Disciplines

The procedure described above for obtaining average research expenditures for master's and doctoral degrees was applied to selected engineering disciplines (civil, chemical, "computer", electrical and mechanical engineering). Data (in inflated currency) resulting from these analyses are shown in the two graphs below.

Master's degree expenditures for "computer", electrical and mechanical engineering have been significantly higher than that of engineering; civil and chemical engineering expenditures have been substantially higher. The declines shown for civil, chemical and mechanical engineering in AY 2004-05 are larger than typical annual fluctuations. AY2005-06 data, when available, will indicate whether new trends are developing.

Doctoral degree research expenditures for the five disciplines selected are all substantially lower than that of engineering as a whole. It is noteworthy that civil, chemical, "computer" and electrical engineering have all declined in the last two years. The data scatter for mechanical engineering precludes analysis of the current trend for this discipline.

Summary

Research expenditures in engineering colleges reached $5 billion in AY 2004-05. The growth since AY1980-81 has been an impressive 510%, but, in deflated currency, 170%. Expenditures per faculty member during this period increased 410%. In deflated currency, the increase per faculty member was 124% or an average annual increase of only 3.4%.

Expenditures per master's degree have remained essentially constant since AY1990-91 at about $30,000 (inflated currency). Doctoral degree expenditures have generally increased since AY1990-91, but declined to about $535,000 in AY2004-05.

Research expenditures (totals and per faculty member) for thirteen engineering disciplines were also studied. Only biomedical engineering and bioengineering increased significantly in research expenditures in AY2004-05. Expenditures for master's and doctoral degrees were determined for civil, chemical, "computer", electrical and mechanical engineering. All five had larger expenditures for master's degrees and lower expenditures per doctoral degree than engineering overall since the mid-1990s.

Acknowledgments

The enrollment data used in this study originated from the annual surveys of the American Society for Engineering Education. Engineering Trends acknowledges the efforts of this organization in providing credible data and expresses its gratitude for their services to the engineering profession. Persons seeking further information about their surveys and the availability of survey data should visit the EWC Web site (www.asee.org). 

Footnote

Engineering Trends data are compiled mainly from information submitted by universities to the annual surveys of EWC and ASEE. On the very rare occasions where errors in data appear, Engineering Trends corrects the error, if possible, or deletes the data if the error is large enough to alter significantly the trend of the university or the US total.