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Computer science programs are blowing up in popularity: figures from Boston, Dartmouth, and Stanford are showing that declared CS majors have quadrupled, or even quintupled, within the last decade. While enrollments will inevitably level off, academics suggest interest will remain high, which isn’t surprising, based on today’s tech-oriented climate and increasing demand for new grads who know their way around code, data analytics, and so on.
The bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2000 prompted students to reject computer science programs. Enrollments plummeted with the crash. But colleges are now scrambling to keep up with the major’s year-after-year enrollment growth. Take Stanford University. In the 2007-08 academic year, Stanford had 87 declared undergraduate computer science majors. That was near the trough of the great decline in computer science enrollments. But since then, the number of declared majors at Stanford has grown in each year and by the 2016-17 academic year, Stanford counted 353 majors. This is now the school's top undergraduate major.
The bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2000 prompted students to reject computer science programs. Enrollments plummeted with the crash. But colleges are now scrambling to keep up with the major’s year-after-year enrollment growth. Take Stanford University. In the 2007-08 academic year, Stanford had 87 declared undergraduate computer science majors. That was near the trough of the great decline in computer science enrollments. But since then, the number of declared majors at Stanford has grown in each year and by the 2016-17 academic year, Stanford counted 353 majors. This is now the school's top undergraduate major.