CS Statistics
The Illinois Science and Technology coalition released a STEM talent report summarizing both national and Illinois trends in technology degree production, and specifically Computer Science degrees:
Computer science (CS) degrees have seen unprecedented growth in Illinois, reaching a record high in 2016. The state has more than doubled its production of CS degrees over the last five years, and is the second largest producer in the country. Aiding this growth is the number of international and immigrant students in the field. A staggering 49.9 percent of CS degrees were awarded to international and immigrant students in 2016.
From 2011 to 2016 the number of CS majors in Illinois doubled, to 3,273. In 2016 Illinois produced 10% of the US CS degrees, and is the 2nd largest producing state for CS degrees. 50% of CS grades in Illinois are non-residents.
Employment
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 2010-2020 projections show that 63% of all new Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) jobs are CS jobs.
Source: See the custom version of the Bureau of Labor Statistics employment page occupations spreadsheet with projections from 2010-2020. The custom version clusters CS jobs.
See also the Code.org statistics page.
There are too few girls and minorities studying tech subjects, according to a 12/11/2013 New York Times article.
7 out of the top 30 jobs are CS/IT jobs according to this graphic on best jobs, summarizing data from CNN/Money, US Bureau of Labor Statistics and payscale.com
Salaries
The Winter 2018 NACE Salary Survey shows CS jobs being among the highest paid jobs, with a 2018 projected average salary of $66,005.
Enrollment
CS enrollments are once again starting to rise, reported as part of an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
New CS curriculum introduced in England, supported by BBC. (Oct. 8, 2013)
"The number of new undergraduate computer science majors at Ph.D.-granting U.S. universities rose by more than 29% last year.... The 2011-12 academic year also marked the third straight year in which the percentage increase in bachelor's degrees awarded in computer science hit double digits. In U.S. computer science departments, the year-over-year increases were 19.8% overall and 16.6% "
Rankings
For the 2017-18 academic year at UIC:
57% of students are Pell Grant recipients, indicating that their family has an annual income of $50K or less.
55% of UIC Freshman paid less than $1,000 out-of-picket.
Source: Talk by UIC Chancellor Michael Amiridis to the CS Department on 3/21/2019
30% of UI Urbana students are international.
Illinois is second in the nation in production of CS graduates, according to a 12/13/18 Chicago Tribune article "Computer Science Reigns". One out of 10 CS degrees in the nation comes from the state of Illinois, second only to California. A new analysis from LinkedIn found that since 2013, Illinois CS graduates are 4.5 times more likely to work in Chicago than the second most common destination, San Francisco.
The UIC jumps in U.S. News Rankings 9/10/18 article from Crain's Chicago Business describes UIC's improvement in rankings:
The article reports that the Wall Street Journal reported 9/5/18 placed UIC in 7th place in terms of the “best value,” among 250 schools nationally.
The "Best Value" top 10 in order are: Berea College, UNC Chapel Hill, UW Seattle, Purdue, UCLA, Harvard, UIC, Georgia Tech, Rutgers, Stanford.
The “Best Values” list is a first-of-its-kind for WSJ/THE; it was generated by further analyzing the top 250 universities in their general rankings list, giving consideration to overall rank, tuition, fees, housing, and federal and institutional aid.
UIC also is generally ranked No. 29 among more than 400 U.S. public universities, according to the 2019 ranking. The WSJ/THE general rankings are based on 15 factors across four categories: student outcomes, resources, engagement and environment. Also considered were more than 200,000 student survey responses on topics such as the difficulty of classes, ease of collaboration with classmates, application of course material to the real world, and more.
Among public schools, UIC is tied for 61st place with 5 other schools. (UIUC is 13th.)
UIC moved up in this year's U.S. News Rankings to 129th from 145th (and up from last year's 152nd) out of 312 national US universities.
For comparison purposes, other area school's national universities rankings are:
Univ. of Chicago 3rd, Northwestern 10th, Notre Dame 18th, UIUC 46th, UIC 61st, Loyola University of Chicago 89th, Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) 96th, DePaul 119th.
UIC Provost Susan Poser reported in Fall 2018 that of all the115 Research 1 universities in the US, UIC serves the largest fraction of students in great financial need. UIC has the highest percentage of Pell grant freshmen, 58%. Pell grant recipients are those in the bottom 40 percent of US income distribution. This has led to UIC being given the 2018 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine.
See a list of student innovators and their companies featured on ChicagoInno 4/19/2016.
UIC's CS Department was ranked 26th on the 2014 list of "50 Most Innovative CS Departments in the US".
Videos
As a backdrop, take a look at the "Did You Know 3.0 / Shift Happens 2008" and "Did You Know 4.0: Convergence 2009" videos from the ShiftHappens wiki.
Dilbert (courtesy of YouTube): The Engineer, The Knack
See also older statistics from previous years.