Engineering Degree Trends for African American Women and Men

摘要

As of this past year, individuals self-identifying as African American were 13% of the US population having grown from about 12% of the population in 2005. For engineering colleges and schools that reported Bachelor's (BS) degree data to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), African Americans earned engineering BS degrees at less than one third their representation in the population. In contrast, Hispanic Americans earned engineering BS degrees at about half their representation in the US population and Asian Americans earned engineering degrees at well over twice their representation in the US population. Tremendous changes in Bachelor's (BS), Master's (MS) and Doctoral (PhD) attainment in US engineering schools has taken place in recent years, including changes in the rate of growth of specific disciplines. The goal of this paper is to use ASEE's database to delve deeper into changes in degree attainment for African American women and men within specific engineering disciplines.