BY WAYNE WEI HUANG, JONATHON GREENE, AND JOHN DAY

OUTSOURCING AND THE DECREASE OF

IS PROGRAM ENROLLMENT

Students must learn to Exposed to this news and the massive IT ^{accentuate the positive in order job downturn resulting from the dot-com} bubble bursting, students of information to eliminate the negative systems (IS) and computer science (CS) ^{perceptions of career became quite concerned about their job} prospects after graduation, understandably opportunities in IS. fearing unemployment. These events created an impetus for IS/CS students to change their major and caused students considering IS/CS to reconsider, leading to a significant decrease in enrollment in IS and CS majors in recent years. For example, by the end of 2004, the enrollment in the IS program at the University of Florida had decreased 66% from its peak. In the computer science program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the decrease was 60%, and at Ohio University it was 71%. Nationally, IS enrollments in recent years are down between 15% to 75% [ 3].

The gravity of the situation faced by IS

The impact of outsourcing IT jobs to low-wage economies has attracted significant public attention in recent years, particularly during the last Presidential election campaign. Some predicted that IT outsourcing would escalate at the rate of over 50% in the subsequent two years with a total of $7.8 billion shifted toward offshoring. Indeed, industry research firm Gartner Group estimated one out of every 10 IT jobs would be outsourced overseas by the end of 2004 [ 2].