Pay Attention to the Median

Freddie de Boer argues that there is no shortage of STEM graduates: 

“the biggest part of the belief in a STEM shortage results from our cultural obsession with technology and our perpetual belief that it will cure all of our ills. ...
[walking by the quad during one of the big tech job fairs...] “These companies are all trying to get the same 50 students.” This, more than anything, may be the source of the persistent STEM shortage myth: the inarguable value of being a star in a STEM field. There’s little doubt that people at the top of the food chain in computer science or electrical engineering or biomedical engineering, etc., often enjoy fantastic material and economic gain. But this is a banal point: it’s good to be a star. It’s good to be a star engineer in the same way it’s good to be a star musician or a star psychologist or a star writer. What public policy and politics demand is that we pay attention not to stars but to the median person. And the median American is facing a world of stagnant wages, the arbitrary nature of the employment market, and the constant fear of our financial system’s boom and bust cycle." 

A while ago, Malcolm Gladwell posed a similar question on his podcast: is it better (for colleges) to focus on the median or on stars? He argues hard in favor of the former. Link here.