LA Education

In a recent posting on Larch-L, someone posted the following tidbit:

> In the past year Karen Hanna, FASLA and recent VP for Education at
> ASLA looked at the problem in a paper and presentation called
> "Challenges in Education" that was widely presented to the
> President's Council, ASLA, CELA, CLARB and LAF. That rather
> extensive study pointed out that the profession in North America is
> producing very close to the same number of graduates today as we have
> since 1983 - that is 1150 per year with about a annual variation of
> approximately 75 or so. Her data from ASLA states the following:
>
> 2002: 75 programs
> 1986: 57 programs
> 1972: 22 programs
>
> 2001: 1133 degrees awarded
> 1998: 1231 degrees awarded
> 1987: 1113 degrees awarded

The rapid growth in programs without an equal growth in degrees is interesting. I wonder how many programs have reduced their size to focus on crafting a more meaningful education for fewer students. I suspect that some schools have become much more concerned about things like national rankings than with size.

It sure doesn't seem to be a market response since the Department of Labor forsees an above average outlook, and there are presumably a number of baby boomers retiring. Admittedly, mobility helps find jobs since places like San Diego don't even have an LA program and areas like Florida are growing faster than all the LA grads can help with.