Dive Brief:
- Of the black and Latino students who embark on a doctoral degree program in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) fields, only 44% earn their Ph.D. within seven years, according to a new study from the Council of Graduate Schools.
- The study also showed that 36% of the graduate students left their doctoral programs without the degree and 20% remained in the programs without a Ph.D. after seven years.
- The survey results suggest one path to increasing diversity among Ph.D.s at colleges and universities would be to find ways of retaining minority students before they leave their doctoral programs, Inside Higher Ed reported.
Dive Insight:
The study examined the advancement of 7,000 black and Latino students in graduate programs at 21 research universities from 1992 through 2012, and it included behavioral and social sciences as part of the STEM fields definition. It also included an opinion survey of 1,640 black and Latino doctoral students. Only 13% reported experiencing racism in their programs, and 77% said standards were the same for all grad students. Only 31% said that faculty understood issues affecting underrepresented minority students.
