Will there be sufficient demand for skills of Ph.D.'s?

Related to post US House votes to expand visas for high-tech workers on visas for high-tech workers -->

The number of STEM jobs is expected to grow by 17 percent by 2018, outpacing broader job growth, [Nicole] Smith's research found.

But not quite a quarter of them will require a graduate degree, which Smith said raised a question for narrowly targeting highly-educated workers: Will there be sufficient demand for their skills?

"There is this pre-occupation with people with master's and PhD's in STEM," she said, adding that much high-tech work relies for example on lower-educated technicians.

In debates on the House floor on Friday, Democrats argued that focusing on advanced degrees gave preferential treatment to better-educated workers at the expense of the lower-skilled workers who make up a large portion of U.S. immigrants.

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