In the years after the 2008 crisis, Spain began to suffer the much-mentioned ‘brain drain’ that, in search of a better future, tried to find employment in other European Union countries with lower unemployment rates. Among those ‘escapees’, there was always a large mass of engineers and graduates in the so-called STEM, or science, careers, which include technology or exact sciences, such as mathematics.
According to a report published by the CyD foundation, the situation of the brain drain of those who had studied science careers has become a ‘need for brains’ since the Spanish university does not produce the scientific graduates that our country’s economy demands.
In 2022, the percentage of university graduates in Spain in STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) was 18.7%forehead to 26% European. The Spanish data It was the fourth smallest among the 27 EU countries and it was very far from Germany, leader with 36%, and from Finland or France (around 29%).
Furthermore, in the last decade (2013-2022), Spain has experienced a decrease of more than six points percentages in these areas, while the EU-27 has increased its percentage by 1.2 points. The Spanish reduction is mainly due to the decrease in the relative weight of graduates in engineering, industry and construction, with a drop of 5.6 points. The proportion of graduates in these STEM fields compared to the population of 20 to 29 years old was 13.9 per thousand in Spain compared to 19.9 per thousand in the EU, surpassing the records of only six of the 27 countries. In the last decade the ratio decreased almost one point in Spain, while in the EU it improved by 3.5 percentage points.
The explosion of the private university
In the 2022-2023 academic year, a total of 201,759 students obtained a bachelor’s degree in the Spanish university system, 153,119 a master’s degree and 11,784 a doctorate. Private universities are taking center stage, since there are currently graduates from them 20.3% of bachelor’s degree holders and 52.6% of master’s degree holders exceeding, for the first time, at this level, the number of graduates from public universities. In doctoral studies, the relative weight of private ones is 6.2%.
Regarding the gender of the students, the women represent the majority of university graduates, even so, their participation reduces as the academic level increases. They represent 60.9% of bachelor’s graduates, 59.8% of master’s graduates and 49.8% of doctoral graduates.
As for graduates of foreign nationality, the opposite situation occurs: they represent 25.7% of doctoral graduates, 24.2% of master’s graduates, and 5% of bachelor’s graduates.
In degree, the areas of business, administration and law (19.3% of total graduates), health and social services (17.6%), and education (16.7%) are the most prominent. In the master’s degree, education stands out, with 30.6% of the total graduates (especially due to the master’s degree qualifying to be a secondary school teacher), followed by business, administration and law (20.9%). In doctoral studies, the areas of science (23%) and health (19%) stand out. The largest participation of private universities in the total occurs in the fields of education, health and business, administration and law. At the other extreme are the fields of science and engineering, industry and construction.
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