"We're seeing reduced demand from employers and increased competition among job seekers, [which] translate into lower starting salaries," said Marilyn Mackes, NACE's executive director. "We've come to expect starting-salary offers to increase and, for many fields, to increase substantially. This year, we've seen a lot of disciplines lose ground and those that have made gains have, for the most part, posted very small increases."

The average offer to electrical engineering graduates has fallen 3.4 percent to $50,123. According to the report, the average offer to computer science grads is below $50,000 for the first time since the fall of 2000. At this point, CS grads are averaging $49,596, a 5.9 percent drop from last year at this time. Computer engineering remains among the top-paid engineering disciplines, despite a 4.3 percent decrease in the average starting salary offer, now at $51,587.

According to a college survey EE Times conducted a year ago, students in 2001 appeared pretty upbeat about finding jobs in the industry, predicting a bounce back in the economy that would put to rest their concerns about employment on graduation. About a third of respondents said they weren't at all concerned about finding a job and the vast majority, 44 percent, were only somewhat concerned. That left slightly less than a quarter who termed themselves very concerned.

But some of today's post-boom students are preparing themselves for the possibility they may not immediately get jobs in their chosen fields, a prospect that has led to the rethinking of both class schedules and long-term plans.

One student said,"The economic slowdown has encouraged me to pursue a more-diversified program of study in order to open more options. I do believe that competition for jobs will become a more tense issue."

Universities have also reported an increase in the number of electronics and engineering students looking at changing their majors due to growing fears of a lack of employment opportunities on graduation.

"Students are fearful about entering the employment market right now as most are uncertain about finding full-time employment," said Ralph McNerney, director of the Industrial Practice Program for the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. "There has certainly been an increase in the number of students inquiring about changing their degree majors out of the technical field. Our advice has been to reassure students that the depression in the high-tech recruitment market is temporary. Nevertheless, students must be more willing and open to leave the Dallas area and even Texas, and we are encouraging them to have a broader scope of what fields they are willing to enter."

The university has registered a rise in the number of companies enrolling in its cooperative internship program but, ironically, a drop in the number of students getting internships.

"The university has increased the number of co-op placements for students and has written to over 3,000 high-tech employers within Texas this year to recruit more onto the co-op internship program. Over 50 percent of those in the program are brand new this year," McNerney said. "But we've had a drop in the number of large companies in the program. While we've had increased take-up from small-to-medium-size companies, they recruit fewer students — maybe one or two compared to the 60 or 70 employed by large companies. The result of this has been a reduction in the overall placement numbers [for interns]."

According to the results from NACE's 2002 Salary Survey, the highest-paid discipline for graduates to enter is hardware design and development, where salaries average $52,588. The average offer for those entering systems/programming engineering is $51,559, and those wanting to work in the field of power systems engineering can expect an average salary of $50,553. Project engineering is offering the lowest average salary, at $49,533.

The highest average-salary offer by employer type is the aerospace/defense field, which is offering new recruits an average starting paycheck of $52,198. Those wishing to enter the electrical equipment/ appliance and component-manufacturing sectors can expect an average salary of $52,117 and those entering the utilities sector can hope for $50,657.

The lowest average starting salaries are in the engineering-services and federal-government sectors, which are offering salaries of $49,099 and $45,770 respectively, NACE said.