Smet
Studies of college graduation rates have consistently shown that blacks, Hispanics and American Indians graduated at a lower rate than whites and Asian Americans (Astin, 1993; NCAA, 1997). A 1998-99 report of 269 colleges and universities in the Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange (CSRDE) indicated that 54 percent of the 1990-92 entering freshmen graduated in six years. The comparable graduation rates for underrepresented minorities were 33 percent for American Indians, 38 percent for blacks and 41 percent for Hispanics. These rates were substantially lower than the graduation rates for white and Asian students. Consequently, the disparities in the representation of blacks, Hispanics and American Indians widened as students progressed from college entry to graduation. Underrepresented minorities constituted 13.4 percent of the 1990-92 entering student population, yet they accounted for only 9.7 percent of those who graduated within six years.
Specific retention studies for science, engineering, mathematics and technology (SMET) majors are generally limited in scope. The only national database available was a 1995 study of 33 institutions in the NSF Research Career for Minority Scholarship and Alliances for Minority Participation programs. The study reported similar racial disparities in the graduation rates of SMET majors. Their six-year institution-wide graduation rates were 41 percent for blacks, 45 percent for Hispanics and 25 percent for American Indians, compared with 60 percent for whites and Asians. The SMET-specific graduation rates were lower than the institution-wide rate; they varied from 29 percent for blacks, to 24 percent for Hispanics, 10 percent for American Indians and 37 percent for whites and Asians. Again, substantial differences existed between the underrepresented minorities and whites. This large difference in baccalaureate attainment is a major cause for the underrepresentation of degreed minority professionals in the SMET fields.
To overcome the lack of minority graduates and their subsequent participation in the SMET professions, the NSF has established as one of its goals “to increase the number of minority and other students who successfully complete baccalaureates in SMET.” Several areas of racial disparities need to be addressed in order to achieve this goal. At the postsecondary level, it is important to bridge the differences in the following areas: precollege academic preparedness, college enrollment rates and college graduation rates. The strategies for intervention, therefore, should include remediation, recruitment and retention respectively. While all areas of intervention are important and interrelated, the shortage of data for monitoring the effect of retention programs is particularly prevalent.
Existing statistics suggest that by closing the racial gap in graduation rates, we can achieve an increase of 40 to 50 percent in underrepresented minority degree recipients each year. Therefore, when working toward the goal of equitable participation of underrepresented minorities in the science, mathematics, engineering and technology (SMET) fields, one cannot overstate the importance of implementing retention programs for improving the graduation rate of underrepresented minority SMET majors. Equally important is a database for evaluating the effect of retention programs over time and across geographical regions and institutional classifications. This database does not exist today.