“Positive and negative predictors of degree completion are not specific to the STEM fields, and the strategies for increasing minority student degree completion in the STEM fields are the same for increasing success in any other major,” adds Dr. Dongbin Kim, assistant professor in the department of teaching and leadership at the University of Kansas and co-author of the report.
“Increasing the Success of Minority Students in Science and Technology” is the fourth publication in the ACE series “The Unfinished Agenda: Ensuring Success for Students of Color.” The report relies on data from a longitudinal study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, which tracked 12,000 undergraduates who entered college in the fall of 1995.
Among the study’s findings:
- In the 1995-1996 academic year, 18.6 percent of Black students and 22.7 percent of Hispanic students began college interested in majoring in STEM fields, compared with 18 percent of White students and 26.4 percent of Asian-American students.
- By the spring of 1998, students in each racial/ethnic group continued to study STEM fields at nearly the same rates (56 percent of Blacks and Hispanics, 57 percent of Whites and Asian Americans).
- By the spring of 2001, 62.5 percent of Blacks and Hispanics majoring in STEM fields attained a bachelor’s, compared with 94.8 percent of Asian Americans and 86.7 percent of Whites.
— Shilpa Banerji
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
