Colleges across the country–liberal arts colleges and research universities alike–are struggling to adjust to the unprecedented explosion of interest in the computer science major. As the New York Times reports, Undergraduate programs at research universities are ratcheting up admission benchmarks beyond what anyone would have imagined a decade ago, and even liberal arts colleges are considering the unthinkable: capping the number of computer science majors. It’s not just a factor of the emergence of a critical field with immediate, high-salaried application in industry. It’s also about the difficulty in attracting top faculty when faculty salaries are dwarfed by those in private industry. How do you serve so many students when you can’t find the faculty?
