"It could become a crisis. I mean, this is the first year that the low numbers are affecting our senior class, because it really started three years ago. So the next two to three years, we know the numbers are going to be low," said Brad Johnson, a lecturer at Penn State Behrend's Plastics Engineering Technology program in Erie, Pa.
"And that's the same with all the plastics programs across the country," he said. "We need to get those numbers up as quickly as we can to get more engineers because I think there's a need for more engineers, not less."
Tom Van Pernis also sees the downward trend up close as associate professor and program coordinator at the Plastics Engineering Technology program at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich.
Total enrollment there has plummeted in recent years.
"It has been significant. So we have gone from 230 within the last 10 years down to less than 50 today. Our incoming class this year was 12," Van Pernis said. "Prior to that, we had a class of seven, and so we're hoping that we've bottomed out and started to increase a bit. But there's still a lot of work to do."
Long gone are the days of waiting lists to get into the program.
"We're begging for students to come our way. It's been a drastic change. COVID certainly didn't help," he said. "We couldn't bring students through to show them our lab space. And it seemed like there was a shift after that."
A growing anti-plastics sentiment in the general population also has become a detriment to interest in plastics education. "I think it's the No. 1 reason, but there also are a number of other reasons. It's definitely the big one," he said.
"It's been this perfect storm of factors," Van Pernis said.
These other factors include an overall drop in people going to college and prospective high school students sometimes perceiving their educations leading to "factory work" instead of engineering careers, he said. And for Ferris State, the introduction of free community college education in Michigan has put a dent in enrollment numbers.
He pointed to Schoolcraft College in Livonia, Mich., near Detroit, as one school that has stopped teaching plastics. Schoolcraft had been offering an associates degree in plastic technology as well as separate certificates for plastics technology and plastics technology skills. "The Plastic Technology programs are on hold pending inactivation," the program's website reads.