There used to be waiting lists for Rick Ord's classes as students packed 200-seat auditoriums to scribble down bits of code once thought to unlock a life of riches and security.
These days, Ord's lectures on systems programming at UC San Diego convene in smaller halls with plenty of empty seats.
It's the same scene on campuses across the country, as enrollment in computer science programs has dropped sharply -- down 23% from 2002 to 2003.
After flocking to computer science during the technology boom, students are fleeing it almost as fast, spooked by tales of unemployed programmers watching their jobs migrate to India and Eastern Europe.
Ironically, the enrollment dip is occurring just as companies prepare to ratchet up hiring, prompting worries about a potential shortage of domestic tech workers when engineers from the Class of 2007 graduate. Long term, some fear that continuing declines could hamper technological innovation.
The Labor Department projects that the number of jobs for computer software engineers will grow 46% from 2002 to 2012. Earlier this year, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates barnstormed five engineering schools to drum up interest.
"Computer science today is poised to do all these amazing things," Gates told students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where computer science enrollments dropped 44% from 1999 to 2003.
The decline has hit just about every type of school. At UC Berkeley, the number of students enrolling in computer science and computer engineering dropped 41% in that period. Enrollments at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta fell 45%.
Nationwide, new enrollments are at 1996 levels -- and few expect them to rebound soon.
"It's been precipitous," said John Guttag, head of MIT's electrical engineering and computer science department.
At UC San Diego, home to the largest engineering school in the University of California system, applications to the program fell 24% from 2002 to 2003.
Jeanne Ferrante, associate dean of the UC San Diego school of engineering, said there was little mystery why. After hovering under 2% in the late 1990s, the jobless rate for computer scientists and systems analysts grew to 5.4% in the last three months of 2003. It then jumped to 6.7% in the first quarter of this year -- outstripping the overall national unemployment rate of 6.1%.
"It used to be that students could name their job, their salary and their bonuses," Ferrante said. "Now it's not as easy."
