Aligning Higher Education STEM Production with Workforce Demand through Professional Master’s Degrees

Graduate education in the natural sciences has traditionally emphasized doctoral training for academic or research careers. This training, however, is not meeting the demand for professionals in business, industry, and the public sector, where individuals with a combination of scientific, technical, and managerial skills will be required. Professional master’s degrees (often called Professional Science Master’s (PSM) or Professional Engineering Master’s degrees) aim to redress this mismatch by providing students with intensive interdisciplinary graduate level coursework in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, combined with training in management.