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An editorial in a weekly news magazine warns that we must quickly increase funding for education in order to remain economically competitive in the world marketplace. The line of reasoning is that the nation will soon face a shortage of engineers because engineers have come from universities, and that our university-age population is shrinking. Moreover, decreasing enrollments in high schools clearly show that this drop in university-age students will continue throughout thedecade. The authors argument is not convincing because it is based on several questionable assumptions. First, the author assumes that because our university-age population is shrinking, university enrollments will likewise shrink. But even if the number of university-age students is dropping, it is possible that a greater proportion of those students will enter universities. If this percentage were sufficiently large, university enrollments could remain relatively stable. Moreover, even if overall university enrollments did drop, we must further assume that the number of engineering students would likewise drop. However, decreases in overall enrollments do no necessarily result in proportional enrollment decreases in each field of study. If demand for engineers were high, then a larger percentage of university students might study to become engineers, in which case engineering enrollments could increase or remain constant, while those in other major fields of study would drop disproportionately. | 
