Declining student enrollment numbers in physics

Today, I had a look into the most recent statistics about physics undergraduate and graduate student enrollment numbers at German universities. Typically, these statistics are published each year in the "Physik Journal", which is a monthly magazine published by the German Physical Society (DPG, Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft). You can find the current statistics here.

What are the main takeaways from these numbers? First of all, 2022 is now the second year in which the student enrollment numbers have seen a significant decline -- see Fig. 3 in the article by the DPG. Why is that? The answer is that nobody really knows. Certainly, the numbers published in 2021 were impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. There was a great uncertainty in many people's lives and thus it is conceivable that some people did not enroll in a college and chose a different path instead. However, the further decline in the enrollment numbers published in 2022 is unlikely to be linked to the aforementioned reason.  Even though the pandemic is still ongoing, we all got used to it to some extent and continued living our lives under relatively normal conditions. Therefore, it would be surprising if there were even fewer students enrolling in physics programs as a consequence of a pandemic that started more than two years ago. Instead, there must be other reasons for the decline in physics freshmen at German universities. 

In Frankfurt, we have clearly noticed this decline, too. Since I will be involved in teaching the introductory experimental physics course on classical mechanics and thermodynamics in the upcoming winter semester, I am even more curious about this year's enrollment statistics. A few years back, there would be around 180 participants in such an introductory physics class in Frankfurt, but during the last couple of years this number has gone down to perhaps 100 to 120 people (this is largely anecdotal, so take this with a grain of salt). We have had numerous discussions about the possible underlying reasons. At first, we were wondering whether this is a Frankfurt-specific problem or not. Well, let's say "yes and no". It turns out that nearby universities in Mainz and Darmstadt have similar issues, but perhaps not as bad as Frankfurt (again, this is anecdotal, but we can safely assume that all three universities do have declining enrollment numbers in physics). Anyhow, the statistics underline that it is a common issue in Germany. 

In this context, it would be interesting to learn whether countries such as the United States are facing similar issues. I did take a look at the Statistical Research Center website of the American Institute of Physics, which is extremely interesting by the way, and there are indications that the same effect can be observed there, too. It appears that the numbers of enrolled juniors and seniors in physics have reached plateaus between 2017 and 2019. For the case of freshmen, it seems that their enrollment numbers are declining since 2017. Consequently, it can be stated that it is not a flaw in the German higher education system or, more generally, in German politics, but potentially a global, more fundamental issue. 

Declining student enrollment numbers in a specific subject like physics can have many different reasons. Perhaps it is a generational issue: Young people nowadays may be interested in contemporary (highly relevant) topics such as climate change and energy science, so they might pick more specialized majors instead of physics. Perhaps physics is just too broad and students do not really see what they can do after graduating.  It is possible that they think of astrophysics and high-energy physics only when thinking about physics, while completely ignoring the fact that there are other subfields such as condensed matter physics and biophysics, which involve more applied topics. Perhaps, we should modernize our physics curricula and include more relevant contents such as computational methods. Maybe there are some issues in our high school education systems that need to be solved first. I have heard about high school teachers complaining that fewer students are interested in physics nowadays. Maybe, as a society, we have to emphasize more clearly the importance of physics and other natural sciences. It is entirely possible that there are further reasons that are yet to be discovered -- please feel free to leave comments and share your opinion!