1962 PSAC Report

In 1962 the President's Science Advisory Committee published a report entitled Meeting Manpower Needs in Science and Technology.  The "PSAC Report" declared that the acceleration of graduate training in engineering, mathematics, and physical sciences, especially at the doctoral level, was a matter of urgent national priority requiring immediate action, without which severe shortages of engineers and scientists would occur. Engineering was identified as an especially crucial area. The federal government was to provide the funds needed, through increased research expenditures, provision of training grants, and fostering of new centers of scientific excellence. The country was, of course, reacting to shocks to its prestige caused by the success of Sputnik, and was also riding the crest of the greatest economic boom in its history, and these events simultaneously provided both the motive and the means for a major expansion in engineering graduate programs. Engineering education responded immediately, and the numbers of graduate students rose to unprecedented heights. (Just eight years later, the magnificent declarations of the PSAC Report were negated by a new conventional wisdom—that Ph.D.s were a drug on the market.)