[stmchn]

Well, frankly, STEM has a reputation of being hard because, well, it IS difficult. It requires certain kinds of critical thinking that the K-12 education system can fail to adequately teach.

I know plenty of people who started college in engineering or computer science knowing there's good paying job opportunities in those fields. But a big chunk of those people drop out once they start taking the more difficult courses.

Retention is just as important as getting people into STEM in the first place but it's hard to retain students who aren't adequately prepared for the challenge.