“Hidden” Economy in Silicon Valley Built Without Advanced Degrees

Silicon Valley is world-renowned for the Nobel Prize winners and MacArthur “geniuses” behind theoretical breakthroughs in science, technology, engineering and math.
Less well-known are people like Patrick Pickerell, a high school dropout whose $10 million-a-year Pleasanton metal manufacturing company is powered by people with no university credentials but plenty of math and fix-it skills — ingredients essential to innovation.
A new report, “The Hidden STEM Economy,” reveals that a university degree is not required for 27.5 percent of all jobs in the San Jose area in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. The number is even higher — 36 percent — in San Francisco and the East Bay.
The report urges policymakers to boost funding for training in such careers as toolmaking, technical writing and technician work — the critical pick-and-shovel brigades in tech’s gold rush. Of the $4.3 billion spent annually by the federal government on tech-oriented education and training, just one-fifth goes toward training below the bachelor’s degree level. National Science Foundation spending largely ignores community colleges, it asserts.