Computer Science's Three Booms
Annual bachelor's degrees in computer and information sciences since 1964, a series that moves in booms and busts synchronized with the technology cycle: the personal-computer wave cresting in 1986, the dot-com wave cresting in 2004, and the climb that began around 2010 and has yet to turn. Each earlier bust bottomed roughly where the prior boom began; the current run has no precedent in the series.
What does it show?
Computer science has boomed three times: the PC wave peaking in 1986, the dot-com wave peaking in 2004, and the current run — which has never turned down and now confers nearly double the dot-com peak.
Methodology
Bachelor's degrees conferred in computer and information sciences by U.S. degree-granting institutions, from Digest of Education Statistics table 325.35, annual since 1964-65. Years label the spring of each academic year. The first two booms ended in enrollment busts; the post-2010 rise is the longest sustained expansion in the field's history.