The problem, though, is that if you want to increase competent people entering certain fields and adding to the local workforce, the last thing you want is to incentivize those fields over others in college. That seems a bit of a contradiction at first glance. But these fields are lucrative for a reason, it takes a high level of understanding to do correctly. If you try and recruit more college students into STEM fields without increasing funding to STEM programs at lower levels, all you will do is drive mediocre students into the field who will have a hard time getting that high payday, even after graduation.

You can’t approach education as if you’re making a car or an iPhone, where you can simply redirect resources to build products that capture more market share. You are dealing with people, and their life choices. You need to capture their imaginations early in order to motivate them toward a particular field.