May 2008 — News
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Report: STEM Gap Widens for Underrepresented Minorities
- Of the 68,000 bachelor's degrees in engineering awarded in the United States in 2006, only 8,500 were awarded to under-represented minorities;
- Of 6,404 doctoral degrees in engineering awarded in 2006, 100 went to African American students; 98 went to Latinos and Latinas; and nine went to Native Americans and Alaska Natives;
- Of these doctoral degree recipients, 55 were women;
- Women of all ethnic backgrounds account for less than 20 percent of the engineering degree recipients at every level;
- Some 1.5 million engineers with bachelor's degrees are employed in the United States, but only 9.5 percent of these are women;
- Of all the states, only Maine had a positive gap (0.8 points), indicating that the percent of engineering bachelor's degree-receiving URMs was higher in 2006 than the percentage they represented in the state's population;
- The worst gap for a state (-30.6 points) was in California, where URMs constituted 43.7 percent of the population but received only 13.1 percent of the engineering bachelor's degrees awarded in 2006. (The District of Columbia had a slightly worse gap, at -30.7 points.)
"There is a solution to America's endangered competitiveness, and NACME is ready to work with government, education, business, and individuals of goodwill to achieve it," said Irving Pressley McPhail, NACME executive vice president and chief operating officer, in a statement released Thursday. "We must prepare and empower America's hidden workforce of young men and women who have traditionally been underrepresented in STEM careers."
NACME is holding a symposium on this topic May 27 through 29 in Virginia. Further information about the symposium, Confronting the "New" American Dilemma, can be found on the organization's Web site here. Further information about the study can be found at the CPST site here. A PDF breaking down the gap in bachelor's degrees in engineering by state can be found here.
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About the author: David Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's online education technology publications, including THE Journal and Campus Technology. He can be reached at dnagel@1105media.com.
Proposals for articles and tips for news stories, as well as questions and comments about this publication, should be submitted to David Nagel, executive editor, at dnagel@1105media.com.
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