Rob:  It’s called STEM, a simple acronym for subjects that could determine our nation’s future.  Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math are all fields that currently do not produce enough graduates to fill the job demand, demand that goes beyond just the needs of industry.  It encompasses our way of life, even our national security.  And nowhere are the risks we face better laid out than in a film called 2 MILLION MINUTES.
Rob:  Meet Neil Ahrendt, senior class president.
Neil Ahrendt:  Ocassionally I do home work, like over the weekend.  Let’s see, on Monday I had to give a presentation in my macro economics class.  And I started it on Sunday at about 4:30, so I was on the computer working on that until about two in the morning.
Brittany Brechbuhl:  Because I want to do pre-med, I know it’s going to be a lot of studying, so I know it’s not going to be as much fun.
Rob:  And aspiring Dr. Brittany Brechbuhl, two graduating seniors featured in a film that questions whether our educational system is as good as we think it is.
I’m going to join a sorority which obviously, you’re going to party a lot, you’re going to have some fun.  
Tim Draper:  America is the one country in the world that doesn’t seem to recognize that it’s in competition for the great minds and the capital of the world.
Rob:  In the film, TWO MILLION MINUTES, filmmakers contrast America’s educational system with that of China, and India, two emerging economies that have made dramatic leaps in educating their middle class.
Vivek Wadhwa:  American’s aren’t globally aware.  They’re more worried about what’s happening in their community than they are in the world.  American’s don’t know they’re competing with the Indians and Chinese.
Rob:  Two countries where the overwhelming majority of college students receive degrees in science and engineering.
Shirley Ann Jackson:  It Brains are everywhere.  Discoveries can be made everywhere.  And industries built on those discoveries, also, can be anywhere.
Rob:  And with wages substantially lower than those in the U S, multinational companies are increasingly choosing China and India for their high tech workforce.
Robert Reich:  The people who are potentially losing their competitive edge are Americans. 
Rob:  Which is why filmmakers followed six students from three different countries as they prepared to enter a global economy.
Good morning Carmel High School.  This is Hillary Hoover with your morning announcements.
Rob:  Across the U S, fewer than 40 percent of students take a science course more rigorous than general biology.  As for math, only 45 percent of American students take anything beyond two years of algebra, and one year of geometry. 
Brittany Brechbuhl:  I am just not the type of person that can study, you know, for 20 hours a day.  I like to kick back and have fun.
Rob:  But in China, studies are a little more regimented.  Students here average about nine hours a day in school; that’s often followed with one-on-one tutoring.
I think American kids have a bigger challenge than Indian kids.  And the reason is that, when you grow up with economic certainty, it takes a very different kind of motivational pull.  So when you grow up like I did, where, you know, my parents were both professionals that were very smart, you know, yet you had no money.  I mean, I could buy secondhand textbooks.  And now, for me, that economic opportunism is a simple beacon.  It makes me work hard.  It makes me apply myself.  So, I actually think kids in the United States have a bigger challenge of being able to get to this point, because they have to apply themselves and drive their internal engine in a different way.  And I’m not quite sure exactly how you get that uniformity like you do with economic opportunism.
Rob:  During the past decade, Indians have founded more engineering and technology companies across the U S than immigrants from Brittan, China, Taiwan, and Japan, all combined.
Vivek Wadhwa:  The fact is that, Indian kids look up to, you know, the tech entrepreneurs in the USA.  And they’re the heroes.  I mean, I’ll tell you, when I was, I run two technology companies, when I used to go back as a tech executive, I was treated like a movie star in India, simply because I was a high tech executive who succeeded in the USA.
Rob:  Nearly 60 percent of engineering PHD degrees awarded annually are earned by foreign nationals.
Shirley Ann Jackson:  And it takes decades to create a high performing scientist or engineer, because these things unfold over time people tend to overlook them.  It is a crisis, because by the time one recognizes what has happened, it takes time to remedy the situation.