Degrees for African Americans and Women by Top Ten Public Producers of Engineering and Computing PhDs

Several years ago I wrote about the top producers of female doctoral degrees. I decided to review the outcomes for the top ten public universities producing engineering and computing PhDs, but focus here on the intersectional context of African Americans and women. Prior LinkedIN articles posted on engineering and computing degrees for African Americans include “Disturbing Decline,” “MS Degrees,” and many others. Also, recent reviewed papers are listed at the bottom of this article. Here, I consider all engineering disciplines plus computer science degrees reported to ASEE. Just ten public universities produce nearly twenty percent of the engineering and computer science degrees for US ASEE data. These numbers will not capture some information systems/science degrees that might be coded by the National Science Foundation as computing degrees. For more including those numbers data from the Computing Research Association is also a good source. 

Stability is probably the most evident element as among public universities, the ranking in the number of doctorates generated was the same in 2018 as it was in 2009 for the top twenty producers. The total number of doctoral degrees produced by the top ten increased from 2249 to 2641, an increase of 17.4%. In 2009, the fraction of foreign nationals earning doctoral degrees from US institutions was only 55.1%, slightly lower than the fraction for the top ten producers, which had 57.1% of their degrees earned by foreign nationals. By 2018, the fraction of foreign nationals earning doctoral engineering and computing degrees across all reporting to ASEE had increased to 56.3%, a consistent change with the modest increase seen for the top ten doctoral degree producers.

2009 Top Ten Public Producers of Engineering & Computing Degrees (ASEE)

  2018 Top Ten Public Producers of Engineering & Computing Degrees (ASEE)

Overall, the number of doctoral degrees earned by women increased by nearly 26%, while the number of degrees earned by men increased by 15.4%. Most of the increase in doctoral degrees earned by women was among foreign nationals with an increase of nearly 40%, while doctoral degrees earned by domestic women only increased by 11.8%. Doctoral degrees earned by male foreign nationals increased by 15.8% at the same time that degrees for domestic men increased by 14.9%. That higher rate of increase in degrees earned by international women resulted in an increase in the female fraction of doctoral degrees from 19.8% in 2009 to 21.2% in 2018. Both of these numbers lag beyond female fractions of doctoral degrees from those years for all engineering and computing programs reported to ASEE of 23.0% and 23.6%, respectively. 

Comparing the same two years as above shows the number of degrees earned by African American men decreased from 25 to 23, and the number earned by African American women doubled from 10 to 20. This corresponded to a small increase in the fraction of domestic doctoral degrees earned by African Americans from 3.6% to 3.9% for these ten public institutions, but it is important to recognize that the relatively small numbers vary year to year. Because of the much larger increase in the degrees earned by African American women compared to domestic women, the African American fraction of doctoral degrees earned by domestic women increased from 4.4% in 2009 to 7.8% in 2018. On the other hand, the African American fraction of doctoral degrees earned by domestic men decreased from 3.4% in 2009 to 2.7% in 2018. Overall, private universities tend to show greater diversity in engineering and computing doctoral degrees with the reported domestic fraction of engineering degrees earned by African Americans at 3.8% in 2009 and 4.2% in 2018. The gender diversity within doctoral degrees earned by African Americans has consistently been better than most other groups as it has been for bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees in engineering and computing.

Although there may be some progress, the progress is slow and certainly not on a trajectory that will lead to success in any reasonable time. In fact, if we focus on pipeline arguments, the available data is discouraging. The fraction of domestic engineering bachelor’s degrees earned by African Americans in 2018 fell from 4.6% in 2009 to 4.2%. The African American fraction of domestic engineering master’s degrees was 4.8% in both 2009 and 2018. Since African Americans comprise almost thirteen percent of our population, our collective approach has not been successful.

Recent Published Diversity Papers

Keith J. Bowman and Contributing Editor, Lynnette D. Madsen. "Queer identities in materials science and engineering." MRS Bulletin 43.4 303-307 (2018).

Keith J. Bowman and Sue V. Rosser, “Enhancing Gender Diversity in STEM Requires Support from All,” ASEE 2019 Annual Meetings Proceedings, Women in Engineering Division, Paper ID #25150.

Keith J. Bowman, “Engineering Degree Trends for African American Women and Men,” ASEE 2015 Annual Meeting Proceedings, Minority in Engineering Division, June, 2015.

Keith J. Bowman, “Texas versus California: Trends in Gender Diversity and Impacts by Engineering Discipline,” ASEE 2014 Annual Meeting Proceedings, Women in Engineering Division, June, 2015.

*The African American fraction of degrees is calculated by dividing the number of degrees earned by African Americans divided by the fraction of domestic degrees. Domestic degrees are determined by subtracting the number of degrees earned by international students from the total degrees.

All of the data and opinions here are solely my personal responsibility and not the opinions of any of the institutions for which I have previously or currently serve. I am happy to correct or clarify the data or listen to perspectives that would result in updates or improvements. The ASEE data is self-reported by each engineering college. I encourage sharing and discussing this with colleagues and feel free to send me your perspectives and opinions so that we all can work on the challenge shown here, together. ?2020 Keith J Bowman