Minority students are leaving science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines in disproportionate numbers before graduating, because affirmative action may be placing students in rigorous academic settings for which they are not prepared, a panel of scholars told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on Friday.
Some scholars told the commission, which is charged with monitoring federal civil rights enforcement, the system of “mismatching” may hurt minority students in STEM who are induced to attend selective schools.
In 1990, underrepresented minorities received 10 percent of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in the sciences and engineering. By 2004, underrepresented minorities constituted 17.2 percent of students awarded science and engineering degrees, according to the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology.
Despite these gains, Black, Hispanic, South East Asian and American Indian students continue to be less likely to complete degrees in agricultural sciences, engineering and physical sciences, when compared to their counterparts in all science and engineering fields.
National graduation data for STEM majors reveal that by the sixth year of college, only about 29 percent of minority students majoring in a STEM field graduate compared to about 40 percent of all students entering STEM majors.
During this same briefing, scholars repudiated the praise historically Black colleges and other minority-serving institutions are enjoying for graduating a significant number of minority students in the STEM disciplines stating: Black colleges graduate Blacks in STEM as a result of their demographics, and doctoral degrees from these institutions are less competitive.
HBCUs produce a significant number of students who go on to earn doctoral degrees in STEM, according to a recent National Science Foundation report. The percentage of science and engineering doctoral degree recipients who earned undergraduate degrees from HBCUs ranged between 24 and 33 percent from 1986 to 2006. The top five baccalaureate-origin institutions of Black science and engineering doctoral recipients were Howard University, Spelman College, Hampton University, Florida A&M University and Morehouse College.
