Undergraduate Enrollment Drop Threatens Nuclear Science

Figures recently released by the Department of Energy indicate that the once-booming field of nuclear science continues to lose its appeal among young researchers--a trend that academic and government observers consider a growing threat to the United States nuclear industry. The DOE statistics--tallies on university enrollment that the department collects annually--show a steadily declining number of young scientists enrolling in nuclear engineering departments in United States academic institutions. It is these departments that produce the scientists who conduct the preponderance of both basic and applied nuclear research. Thus, the observers fear, as the erosion of interest persists, the field's future work force is bound to diminish below levels required for progress. According to DOE, the number of undergraduate students enrolled in the discipline has reached an all-time low: from a high in 1977, with 2,095 students entering nuclear engineering, to 1,001 in 1991. These and other numbers seem to support predictions made in a 1990 National Research Council report, "U.S. Nuclear Engineering Education: Status and Prospects," of a shortage of nuclear engineers by the mid-1990s. The NRC analysis concluded that "this pattern of decline in U.S. nuclear engineering education raises issues that may be vital to implementing U.S. energy policies and practices in the next 20 years." Although the job market for nuclear engineers is currently stable, fewer candidates are graduating from university nuclear engineering programs each year to take those positions. Most nuclear engineering students are trained to design or operate nuclear power plants, and the standstill in that industry--there hasn't been a nuclear generator ordered since the mid-1970s--has convinced many students there is no future in the field, say nuclear engineering experts. Now, just enough students graduate to replace retiring engineers. If second-generation reactors are ever built, the problem will be compounded, they say. On the flip side, for those few students who go into nuclear research, a lack of traditional jobs as well as research opportunities seems to be chronic. For example, DOE, a large employer of nuclear engineering Ph.D.'s, has all the doctorate- level, advanced reactor researchers it needs, according to Richard Stevens, director of the office of university and science education at the department. But, realizing that DOE needs to maintain research in order to keep academic departments afloat, the department has increased its university research grants to $5 million a year, and it has joined with utilities to provide some undergraduate fellowships, Stevens says. But that may not be enough. "Things keep getting tighter, and it's scaring us. There is a real struggle on the part of some nuclear engineering departments just to survive," says Edward Klevans, department head and a professor of nuclear engineering at Pennsylvania State University. This summer's obituaries included Mississippi State University, which will no longer offer a major in nuclear engineering. The nuclear engineering department's enrollment had dwindled to about 35 students, making it too expensive to maintain accreditation standards. The department's years-long, intensive effort to recruit students to the major--which once attracted almost 100 students several decades ago--has finally failed, MSU officials say. It joins scores of other defunct programs: In 1975 there were 80 university nuclear engineering departments; now there are 38 degree programs, and only two-thirds of those are accredited. Other departments are maintaining enrollment, but officials in these programs are clearly worried. Albert Bolon, head of nuclear engineering at the University of Missouri, is concerned that his expensive, on-campus reactor may be shut down before too long, as were most university-based reactors, curtailing training and research efforts. Whereas there were 87 reactors in 1970, there are about 25 now, according to Bolon and DOE figures. "Even disregarding nuclear power generation, I cannot steer students into possible new uses of nuclear engineering, such as space nuclear power and nuclear medicine, if we don't have a research tool," says Bolon. In addition to the more than 100 percent drop in undergraduate nuclear engineering enrollment over the last 15 years, DOE reports that master's degree awards have also been cut in half since 1977; from 554 that year to 222 last year. Ph.D.'s remained flat, at 122, in 1991. The trouble in these academic departments mirrors the public's lack of support for all things nuclear, from power generation to bomb production, many in the industry say. And they see the watershed year as 1979, the year of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant partial meltdown, when nuclear engineering swiftly went from a glamour field to a social liability, as Georgia Institute of Technology's Narl Davidson puts it. "After the accident, student enrollment dropped off by a factor of two. I felt then that dealing in guns or dope would have been more socially acceptable," says Davidson, assistant dean of engineering. "There is still some of that sense." As a result of student disinterest, Georgia Tech's program was merged with mechanical engineering. Davidson says it started to recover slightly until the 1986 accident at Chernobyl, "which gave it another kick in the stomach." Christopher Lapp, a student of Davidson's in the late 1970s, says he has lived through nuclear engi-neering's nosedive in popularity. Shortly after Three Mile Island, many of his friends moved into mechanical or electrical engineering, but he stayed on. After receiving his bachelor's and master's degrees from Georgia Tech, and operating a North Carolina power plant for four years, he received a doctorate in the field from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989. Today, Lapp has decided to explore the environmental features of nuclear waste management, a field he calls "the big thing now, with the big money." But to do that, he needed additional schooling; he has just graduated from the University of Florida with a master's degree in environmental ecology. Lapp believes the biggest problem facing the field is replacement of teachers, many of whom are nearing retirement. One reason is that there is a dearth of qualified candidates to teach; almost half of all doctoral candidates are foreign-born, and many will return to their countries, he says. According to DOE statistics, 332 of 699 U.S. doctoral students in 1991 were born outside the country. Still, for the time being, department chairmen are convincing students that the jobs are there. When Missouri's Bolon talks to students one-on-one, he tells them about the power generation jobs waiting, or, if they are not interested in that, he tries to steer them into emerging areas: "I tell them about opportunities in nuclear cleanup, both low and high levels, and such possibilities as turning bombs into reactors." He adds, however, that the future of the field depends primarily on "public perception." Glenn Steele, head of the now-defunct Mississippi program, agrees: "It's a sad situation, but there is still this perception in the general public that anything nuclear is terrible and dangerous." "Unfortunately, nuclear is an emotional issue for a lot of people, and students who read the popular press feel that there is not a future," says James Tulenko, a professor and chairman of the department of nuclear engineering sciences at the University of Florida, which has the largest undergraduate program in the country. "But the jobs are there. And students are getting jobs." Larry Blair of Oak Ridge Associated Universities, a division of DOE affiliated with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, predicts that market forces may convince more students to enter the field: "As salaries go up, more students will come back in." But he adds that the lag time between increasing enrollment and job availability may mean that "things will get worse before they get better." Renee Twombly is a freelance writer based in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

Undergraduate Enrollment Drop Threatens Nuclear Science

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