Is Computer Science Enrolment Heading Up?

The Computer Research Association (CRA) has a new report out on computer science enrollment. The discussions online are a real mix of the glass being half full and half empty. If you look at the long term you see things like enrollment dropping about 70% in the last 7-8 years. Articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education and Computerworld are reporting the long term picture and are pretty much in the doom and gloom school of thought.

On the other hand Inside Higher Education is looking closely at the most recent year's  numbers and suggesting that the decline may be over. This year's numbers are up slightly (at least at schools that offer graduate as well as undergraduate programs in computer science). Personally that is not enough to prove to me that things are moving up but it may indicate that the fall has been stopped.

The Inside Higher Education article is more valuable (I think) because it also highlights some of the things that schools are doing to attract and retain more students. Computer forensics is a new and growing area for example. Places like Bryn Mayr has a three year old computer science major and one of the things they are doing is using robotics. They are part of the IPRE program with Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech has done a lot to revise their curriculum and besides robotics they have a pretty cool media computation program that is attracting a lot of students.

Of course game development is getting to be a big deal in a lot of places as well. Multi disciplinary programs that involve fields as diverse as biology, psychology and even theatre are showing more students the relevance of computer science far beyond "just" programming.

I'm not sure that I agree with Giselle Martin of Georgia Tech when she says that "Computer science is the new sexy" but maybe - just maybe - that is coming.