Meeting the Challenge of Industry Demand for Construction Program Graduates

Introduction

The demand for construction graduates and its related impact on enrollments and faculty resources has been an interest and concern within the construction-related educational community. Although anecdotal evidence suggests a high demand for construction management graduates as evidenced by the strong enrollment numbers and high job placement rates reported by many construction programs, few formal studies concerning the demand for construction graduates can be found in the research literature. This lack of data makes it difficult to strategically plan for the growth of the construction management profession. Fortunately, a sense of the magnitude of the potential demand can be deduced from the limited available data.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has estimated that construction managers held 431,000 jobs in 2004 (BLS, 2006). In addition, they projected that employment of construction managers would increase by 9% to 17% over the 10-year time period ending in 2014. This equates to a total of 38,790 to 73,270 new construction management job openings being created by 2014. To satisfy this projected demand, undergraduate construction-related programs across the country would have to graduate approximately 3,730 to 6,820 students in 2005 with the annual number of degrees awarded increasing to between 4,031 and 7,855 by the year 2014.

Although the BLS does not prepare regional or state employment projections, each state’s Employment Security Agency utilizes the BLS’s Occupational Employment Statistics survey to gather occupational employment data and prepare employment projections for their individual state. An aggregation of each individual state’s long-range projections for the 2002 to 2012 projection period results in an estimated average of 11,000 construction manager job openings per year nationwide (ALMIS, 2006). Unlike the BLS projections, this demand includes both new jobs created and replacement jobs required due to normal employee attrition from the profession. Table 1 provides a breakdown of each state’s projected average annual demand for construction managers.

The demand ranges reported above are similar to that reported by Bilbo in a study published in the Spring 2000 edition of the Journal of Construction Education which estimated that a total of 7,045 construction-related graduates would be required to satisfy expected industry demands in 2003 (Bilbo, et. al., 2000). Thus, the BLS estimate, the state projections and the Bilbo study give comparable results and, for discussion purposes, assuming a current demand in the range of 7,000 to 8,000 graduates per year would not seem unreasonable. For comparative purposes, it is interesting to note that during the 2003-2004 academic year there where 8,142 civil engineering degrees awarded within the United States (ASEE, 2006).

In contrast, the number of construction-related degrees awarded during the 2002-2003 academic year was 3,568 (Gehrig, 2005). This would suggest a current shortage of construction management graduates of approximately 3,400 to 4,400 per year and supports the BLS observation of a strong job market where the number of construction management job openings exceeds the number of qualified individuals seeking to enter the occupation. Recognizing the relative magnitude of the shortage, the critical issue becomes identifying how the construction profession and particularly the construction-related educational establishment should respond to the shortage. This paper outlines some possible available options.

Discussion

There are only two available approaches to increasing the number of construction graduates:

1.        Increase the enrollment of existing construction programs, and

2.        Start additional construction programs.

Each approach has its challenges and any effective strategy is likely to require a combination of the two approaches.

Increase the Enrollment of Existing Construction Programs

There are many effective strategies available that could be used to increase the enrollment of existing construction programs. These include, but are not limited to, recruitment and outreach programs, retention and advising programs, distance education, industry collaborations, etc. Although a few have enrollment management caps, most academic programs are routinely engaged in activities to increase, or least maintain, their enrollments as their funding is usually tied to their student enrollments. The question is not how programs can grow, as those strategies have already been well developed, but what the current enrollment capacity is for existing construction programs.

A recent study of 2002-2003 academic year enrollments for 111 construction-related programs within the United States indicated that program enrollments varied from 13 to 594 students with the average enrollment being 164 students (Gehrig, 2005). Since that time, the largest programs are now approaching 700 students. However, the data suggests that most programs begin to implement enrollment caps once their enrollments reach approximately 450 students. Some reasons for this may include limited classroom and laboratory space, increased faculty workloads and reduced quality of educational programs. The study did indicate that faculty workloads, as measured by student-to-faculty ratios, increased as program enrollments increased.

Most of these limitations have a financial basis as, unfortunately, many construction programs do not receive the same level of institutional support or funding per student as similar engineering programs. If institutions can be properly educated concerning the actual industry need and demand for construction management graduates, they may be persuaded to increase the level of funding that would allow for programs to grow larger then currently permitted. However, despite the inequities, the current funding model is not likely to change in the short term and it appears reasonable to assume, again for discussion purposes, an upper limit on a program’s enrollment capacity of approximately 500 students.

As the number of degrees awarded would have to more than double in order to satisfy the expected demand, the total enrollment for all construction-related programs would also have to double. This would require an average program size of 328 students if no new programs were added. A shift this large in the average program size seems unlikely to occur, particularly if a large majority of programs maintain the threshold of 450 to 500 students for capping their enrollments. As a comparison, the 221 civil engineering programs within the United States have an average enrollment of 197 students (ABET, 2006).  A reasonable enrollment target for existing construction programs would seem to be a 25% increase in capacity which would increase the average program’s size to 200 students. If attained, this would result in a comparable 25% increase in degrees awarded or a total of 4,460 degrees annually.

Start Additional Construction Programs

The 4,460 degrees awarded annually that potentially could be obtained with enrollment increases in existing construction programs still falls short of the estimated demand for graduates. The additional shortfall would have to be made up through the startup of additional construction programs. As it takes a significant time to plan and launch a new construction program and for that program to produce graduates, this option will not have any impact on the immediate shortage of graduates. Therefore, if the maximum demand projected by the BLS of 7,855 graduates for 2014 is used for the analysis, a shortage of 3,395 degrees awarded is created. 

Assuming an average program size of 200 students for the new programs (which the data indicates would produce approximately 40 graduates per year per program), to generate the additional 3,395 graduates would require the addition of approximately 85 new construction programs throughout the United States and would bring the total number of construction-related programs to 196. This would elevate construction education to a comparable level with civil engineering which currently has 221 programs. Unfortunately, the creation of 85 new construction programs is a formidable task that in all likelihood is not going to occur by 2014. However, that fact does not alleviate the need to move forward in some manner to address the problem.

To create such a significant number of new construction programs will require substantial leadership from the construction industry, from accreditation agencies and professional societies, and from existing construction programs. Potential academic institutions and universities that could host new programs need to be identified, administrators at those institutions need to be lobbied and educated concerning construction education programs, and assistance in developing and launching the new programs needs to be provided. Existing construction programs can take a leading role in all of those endeavors as they already serve as the leading construction education expects in their respective regions.

With 85 new programs, a new program is likely to find its way into every existing construction program’s backyard or perceived region of influence. However, there are some states and regions within the United States that are currently underserved by construction-related programs when compared to other areas. These underserved areas should be specifically targeted for new construction programs. Table 2 indicates the relative ranking of states when compared on a construction-related undergraduate degree awarded per average annual job opening basis. As can be seen, only four states are currently graduating enough CM students to meet their in-state demands. In addition, six states plus the District of Columbia currently have no construction-related programs. It is significant to note that the states with the four largest populations, California, Texas, New York, and Florida (Census, 2006) plus Maryland have a combined shortage of 3,212 graduates or almost 29% of the total nationwide shortage. This means that 25 new programs would need to be targeted for just these five states.

Conclusions

Although few formal studies concerning the demand for construction graduates can be found in the research literature, a sense of the magnitude of the potential demand can

be deduced from the limited available data. The data indicates that the demand for construction graduates is currently in the range of 7,000 to 8,000 graduates per year and is expected to increase by 9% to 17% over the next ten years. Based on 2002-2003 graduation rates, a current shortage in the range of 3,400 and 4,400 graduates exists.

Available options to increase the number of construction graduates is limited to increasing enrollment at existing construction programs and starting new construction programs. The data would suggest that total overall existing enrollments could likely be increased by about 25% before facility and faculty resource constraints would curtail additional growth. Despite this increase in existing enrollments, a shortage of 3,395 graduates per year by 2014 would still be experienced.

Additional growth in existing programs may be possible; however, institutions would have to be educated concerning the critical need for construction management graduates and successfully lobbied to increase the level of funding for such programs. Ideally, the goal would be to have construction programs funded at a comparable level to engineering programs. Data from this report can be used to support such efforts.

It is unrealistic to expect growth in existing programs, even if funding levels are increased, to be sufficient to address the entire anticipated shortage of graduates. The remaining shortage would have to be made up through the creation of approximately 85 new construction programs within the United States. The creation of such a significant number of new construction programs will require substantial leadership from the construction industry, from accreditation agencies and professional societies, and from existing construction programs. Although it is not likely that all of the new programs would be realized, the need to move forward remains. It is believed that existing construction programs must take a leadership role in this effort.

Currently there are some states and regions within the United States that are currently underserved by construction-related programs. States with acute shortages in graduates include California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Maryland. In addition, South Dakota, Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii, Wyoming, Delaware, New Hampshire, and the District of Columbia currently have no construction-related programs. These states should be specifically targeted for new construction programs. In addition, efforts to attract and train new faculty would need to be intensified as the creation of the new programs will exasperate the acute shortage of qualified construction faculty that currently exists.

More formal research into the demand for construction graduates should be undertaken in order to gain a better understanding of the actual number of graduates required, thus allowing the full scope of the problem to be identified and analyzed. In particular, research into how the construction industry has adapted to the shortage and where the industry is finding the personnel to makeup the shortfall is critical to the discussion.

References

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Bilbo, D., Fetters, T., Burt, R., & Avant, J. (2000). A study of the supply and demand for construction education graduates. Journal of Construction Education, 5 (1), 78-99.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, (accessed 1/11/2006). URL http://www.bls.gov.

Gehrig, G. Bruce, (2005). A Survey of the Status of Baccalaureate Degree Awarding Construction-Related Programs within the United States. International Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Associated Schools of Construction, April 7-9, 2005, Cincinnati, Ohio.

U.S. Census Bureau, (accessed 1/09/2006). URL http://www.census.gov/