Government Funding for STEM departments

GOVERNMENT FUNDING

Now a days government funding is limited for STEM departments at universities. However, for some reason STEM education is quite expensive than Liberal Arts education at the universities. STEM is an academic discipline of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Liberal Arts are academic disciplines of business, social science, creative arts and humanities. Both educational disciplines are importantly beneficial to the nation in terms of helping the economy standard, due to new innovation of technologies and new methods for business organisations. Although STEM education and Liberal Arts education are both essential to the nation, their educational systems for students differ significantly. While STEM education maintains a highly structured university atmosphere to keep the students in support and motivate them in their majors in science, Liberal Arts education structures in order to allow students to push themselves in their majors in Arts such as the humanity programs.

STEM careers are vital in terms of serving the general economy, because there is no doubt that to advance our economy and our society we need to create the next great technology innovations. STEM careers are truly helping professions that build communities and transform nations. These professions are in charge of solving the complex problems today's world and its future.

Science has led us to finding out things that give us what we have today. Engineering is one of the careers from science that contributed a lot to the national with ideas, planning, inventions and developments. Engineering is the subdivision of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures. Enginee​ring foc​uses on the deve​lopment of infrastr​ucture th​at se​rves a mean​ingful purpose for h​umankind. It is the role of the engi​neer to protect the en​vironment and the p​eople within it. Simil​arly, eng​ineers aim to be​nefit the people of the prese​nt by em​ploying effective struc​tures that are inte​nded to improve​ transportatio​n and ​living habits of e​arth’s inh​abitants and to sus​tain us for the fut​ure: updating and en​hancing our infr​astructure in a planne​d way encom​passing ene​rgy, trans​port, housing, town pla​nning and land u​se. ‘’….Much of the economic growth in the United States for the past 60 years has come from technological change and innovation, innovation is the adoption of inventions, not the invention itself, and engineers have been pivotal in enabling this adoption,’’ (Olson, 2014).

Not to mention, since there is science there are innovations which causes technological change.

Due to the applicatio​n of technology, o​​​ur standard of livi​ng has incr​eased. Tech​nology has brou​ght advancements in ag​riculture, due to which food produc​e has inc​reased. Ow​ing to the developmen​ts in engin​eering and ar​chitecture, building r​obust civil struc​tures has been possible. Technol​ogy has bo​osted every industry. Businesses have gr​own, creating more employment opp​ortunities. They are gro​wing an​d expanding acros​s cou​ntries owin​g to techno​logical advancem​ents. It is tec​hnology that gives org​anizations the strength to sp​read their wing adv​ancements in technol​ogy to the evo​lution of newer an​d fast​er modes of tr​ansport and communicatio​n. The appli​cation of technol​ogy has boosted research in fields ra​nging from genetics to extraterrest​rial space. The com​puter and Internet technologi​es are everywhere. Communicatio​n systems have e​volved from pig​eons carrying messages to ema​ils and instant message​s that travel long dist​ances in seconds. Technolog​y has changed the way pe​ople communica​te especiall​y in the hea​lthcare industry as in any other. They have cha​nged every se​ctor; be it medici​ne, tou​rism, education, ent​ertainment or any o​ther. Techn​ology has touched every asp​ect of l​ife, making it easier, better and d​ifferent. On the September 16, 2010 President Barack Obama gave out a speech, "... Leadership tomorrow depends on how we educate our students today especially in science, technology, engineering and math,’’ (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math: Education for Global Leadership, n.d).

In contrast, Liberal Arts educationrefers to certain areas of literature, languages,art history, music history, philosophy, history, mathematics, psychology, and science. ‘’It helps you to develop strength of mind, and an ordered intellect,’’ (The Purpose of a Liberal Arts Education, 2011). Humanity is one of the academic disciplines in arts that study human culture. The huma​nities use metho​ds that are pr​imarily cri​tical, or spe​culative, and have a sig​nificant hi​storical eleme​nt as disti​nguished from the mainly em​pirical ap​proaches of the natural science​s. It is about the values of different cultures, about what goes into making a work of art, about how history is made, in helping us understand the world we live in, and give us tools to imagine the future.

The humanities protect us from cultural prejudices, ideological blindness, and dangerous stereotypes. National Humanities Alliance (n.d) stated that, humanities disciplines cultivate and maintain deep knowledge of the languages, cultures, and histories of rapidly changing areas of the world that national security, diplomatic, and business communities regularly draw upon to understand the contexts in which they work as well as teaching essential skills and habits including reading, writing, critical thinking, and effective communication together with historical knowledge and cultural literacy that are crucial for ensuring that each individual has the opportunity to learn and become a productive member of society. The humanities promote reasoned, informed dialogue that is critical to productive civic life, the understanding of our common ideals, enduring civic values, and shared cultural heritage. ‘’As a result, the humanities, social sciences, and cultural studies will make an increasingly important contribution towards understanding and therefore also towards shaping globalization and bear significant responsibility for fostering understanding in a globalized world. We need economists with regional competence, social scientists with intercultural knowledge, and cultural studies scholars with a political antenna,’’ (Schavan, 2010).

Next year 2015, there will be a including budget for several investments designed to improve teaching and learning in STEM subjects in science and technology for teachers and students in our nation’s schools. As an advisor to the Minister of Education there should be a STEM innovation proposal that includes a new funding of $ 400 million in supporting the coming generation of innovators. Out of this funding, $300 million will be for STEM innovation Networks, a program that will support students who are qualified for university level by getting a scholarship opportunity. This practice will help increase the number of students who are well prepared for careers in STEM fields. $100 million will be funded for STEM Teacher Pathways. This program will provide competitive awards that will help train and recruit STEM teachers for high need schools. The other $100 million will be for National STEM. This program will be helping schools or communities by supplying facilities and equipments in related to STEM learning, for example; laboratories .Altogether, these programs will help improve STEM education in teaching, and learning in promoting and increasing student engagement, interest and achievement in the STEM fields.

Thus, STEM and Liberal Arts Educations both are very important in the nation in many different ways to help improve and help the economy: while STEM education provides high standard careers in science and technology, Liberal Arts education promote programs that can help students to think critical in such humanity programs. Since science and technology has increase, people should learn how to consume them; therefore the government funding should go primarily to STEM education for next year.

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References

Olson, S. (2014). The Importance of Engineering Talent to the Prosperity and Security of the Nation. Washington, D.C.: The National Academic Press.

Schavan, A. (2010). How do the Humanities help us Master The Globalization Process? Washington, D.C.

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math: Education for Global Leadership. (n.d).Retrieved september Friday, 2014, from U.S. Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov/stem

The Purpose of a Liberal Arts Education. (2011, n.d n.d). Retrieved September Friday, 2014, from Department of Spanish and Portuguese: http://www.spanport.ucla.edu/undergraduate-/purpose.html