ARLINGTON, Va., May 18, 2004 -- U.S. preeminence in science and technology is being threatened by a lack of student interest, according to a report issued this month by the National Science Board (NSB).

The independent board that advises the president and Congress on matters of science and engineering pointed to a number of signs that the tide is turning against the United States.

"We have observed a troubling decline in the number of U.S. citizens who are training to become scientists and engineers, whereas the number of jobs requiring science and engineering training continues to grow," the board wrote in an introduction to its Science and Engineering Indicators 2004.

In April, a separate report from the U.S. Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics said that more than half of U.S. students are not taking any science in their senior year of high school. The Education Department's report was based on transcripts of more than 20,000 graduating high school seniors from 277 public and private high schools.

The NSB report cited three major trends that are combining to slow the growth of the U.S. science and engineering workforce: degree production, retirement rates, and immigration issues.

"Even if action is taken today to change these trends, the reversal is 10 to 20 years away," the board said.

During the 1980s and through 1998, the number of science and engineering doctorates rose in the United States. Then the numbers declined from 28,800 to 27,100 by 2001, with a similar decline in the number of master's degrees.

Meanwhile, the science and engineering workforce is aging in America and retirement rates are beginning to rise. More than half of science and engineering degree holders are 40 or older. There are four times as many science and engineering professionals in their early 40s as there are over 60.

There was a time when foreigners helped meet the demand for science and engineering professionals. But more recently, foreign nationals who qualify for these jobs face tighter national security restrictions limiting their entry into this country, while other nations are making themselves more attractive as places to live and work.

"They have in place, or are instituting, policies and incentives to retain their highly trained personnel, attract expatriates, or otherwise benefit from their nationals working abroad, chiefly in the United States," the board said.

Educational systems are expanding overseas with an emphasis on science and technology. China, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and other countries are becoming more competitive in hiring more productive overall in science and engineering.

The NSB said the United States continues to produce the largest number of scientific research articles of any nation, accounting for about one-third of publications worldwide, while also leading the way in technical innovation and technology transfer.

But the scientific output of the United States has remained steady for the past decade, while a number of Asian economies have begun to expand their world market share of high technology products. They have increased their research and development spending and are becoming more prolific in the scientific literature.

In the United States, science and engineering jobs have increased more than four times the rate of total employment over the past 20 years. But one reason for this is that so many foreign-born scientists and engineers are part of the workforce. This is changing.

"Japan and the mature industrial nations of Europe, which have aging and declining or stagnating population, are seeking an inflow of scientists and engineers from abroad as well as the return of their own researchers from other countries," the report said.

Some say the decline of interest among U.S. students is because of a failure to inspire the nation's youth to pursue the sciences. This cannot change overnight.

Students entering the science and engineering workforce today made decisions 14 years ago that enabled them to follow a course of study that would make them qualified applicants. Students making those same decisions in middle school today will not complete their advanced training for science and engineering jobs until 2018 or 2020. Years or decades are needed to build facilities for education, training faculty and supporting students.

"If action is not taken now to change these trends," the board said, "we could reach 2020 and find that the ability of U.S. research and education institutions to regenerate has been damaged and that their preeminence has been lost to other areas of the world."