Barriers and Opportunities for 2-Year and 4-Year STEM Degrees Systemic Change to Support Students' Diverse Pathways (2016) / Chapter Skim
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2 Multiple STEM Pathways
2 Multiple STEM Pathways
Pages 21-58
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From page 21... ...
• "On-time" completion of a credential is infrequent: only 22 per cent of students aspiring to earn a STEM degree in 4 years achieve their goal. • The completion rates for students who aspire to a STEM degree continue to be lower than those for students in many other fields, which has led to questions about the quality of the edu cational experiences for STEM students.
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From page 22... ...
However, this growth is derived from a very small base of less than 2 percent of nonprofit enrollments in 1990 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014)
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. Community colleges are popular destinations for transferring students due to a number of factors, including lower cost, increased accessibility (The College Board, 2014)
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. Increasing numbers of black and Hispanic students are attending college: as a consequence, nonHispanic white students now account for a smaller fraction of all college students.
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. Although interest in pursuing STEM majors continues to increase, overall STEM completion rates have remained stagnant, and disparities among underrepresented groups persist (Eagan et al., 2014)
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high school students probably do not have. among STEM degree earners: see National Academy of Sciences (2007)
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, Eagan and colleagues (2014) provide trend analyses on aspiring first-time freshmen and longitudinal analyses that focus on completion rates based on the characteristics of students who intend to pursue STEM and students who were non-STEM majors at college entry.
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With the exception of mathematics, all STEM fields show increased student interest and have recovered in the last decades from an all-time low in the late 1980s. Comparing student intentions by race and ethnicity, the initial gap between under epresented minority students and white and Asian students evident r in 1971 has largely been closed, and only in the last few years is there evidence of slight differences, with 38 percent of white and Asian students aspiring to STEM majors, compared with 35 percent of underrepresented 4 All students who aspire to a STEM degree do not start college in a STEM major.
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In 1971, 62 percent of men and 38 percent of women aspired to a STEM degree; in 2012 the percentages were 48 percent and 52 percent respectively. When social sciences are included in the analysis of STEM aspirants, more than half (52%)
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From page 30... ...
. Demographic differences in intended majors occur across fields: women are more likely to pursue biological sciences, health professions, and social sciences and men are more likely to intend majors in engineering, mathematics, and computer science, as well as the physical sciences.
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(20,763) Gender Men 40 79 25 75 57 30 Women 61 21 75 25 43 70 Race American Indian <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 <1 Asian 14 13 9 16 10 7 Black 8 6 10 8 5 10 Latino 9 9 9 8 6 14 White 54 59 59 53 65 53 Other 15 13 13 15 14 15 Income Below $50K 30 25 34 32 26 38 $50K–$100K 30 32 34 31 34 29 Above $100K 40 43 32 37 40 33 Mother's Education No college 26 23 32 27 22 31 Some college 16 15 18 16 16 17 College degree or higher 59 62 51 58 62 52 Precollege Preparation HS GPA: A-or higher 62 62 50 55 64 45 Years of HS math: 4 or more 92 94 87 92 92 84 Years of HS physical science: 3 or more 29 39 27 33 50 28 Years of HS biological science: 3 or more 29 12 23 13 16 18 Completed calculus 39 51 25 45 45 24 Completed AP calculus 42 60 21 51 50 22 NOTES: AP = advanced placement; GPA = grade point average; HS = high school.
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From page 32... ...
. STEM degree completion varies across fields, by students' race, ethnicity, and gender, and by institutional type (Eagan et al., 2014)
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Within 6 years of entering college in 2004, just over 40 percent of all first-time, full-time STEM aspirants completed a STEM degree. Within this cohort Asian American students outpaced their peers in STEM at the 4-, 5-, and 6-year completion rates, with a total of 52 percent completing a STEM degree in 6 years.
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FIGURE 2-5 Cumulative percentage of 2004 STEM aspirants who completed STEM degrees in 4, 5, and 6 years. SOURCE: Eagan et al.
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. the type of institution.6 Doctoral and research universities outperformed liberal arts and master's comprehensive institutions for STEM completion rates among STEM aspirants in engineering and biomedical sciences, but liberal arts colleges outperformed the other institutions when considering completion in the physical sciences (Eagan et al., 2014)
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In addition, these multivariate analyses demonstrated that black STEM aspirants are more likely to graduate with a STEM degree if they attended a historically black college or university than if they had been enrolled at a predominantly white university. Student Mobility Enrollment mobility is often unaccounted for in discussions of STEM students.
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From page 37... ...
. Attending multiple institutions is associated with increased time to degree and lower STEM degree completion rates (Salzman and Van Noy, 2014)
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This lack of migration into engineering highlights the important role that initial choice of major plays for undergraduate engineering students and suggests that creating new entry points might increase overall completion rates. The structure of engineering curricula may play a role in retention in the discipline, as well as the experience for students.
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There has been a consistent push to increase the amount of knowledge and number of skills expected from an undergraduate engineering education (e.g., National Academy of Engineering, 2004)
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The data we reviewed indicated that community colleges play a substantial role in addressing workforce needs and in further developing the talent pool of students who may later obtain advanced STEM degrees. Van Noy and Zeidenberg (2014)
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As shown in Table 2-6, about one-half of community college students enrolled in a STEM field, including science and engineering (7%) , technician programs (10%)
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. Conversely, 2-year colleges outpaced 4-year colleges in enrollment of engineering technician and computer and information sciences programs, reflecting the greater emphasis on workforce preparation programs in community colleges.
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. Student Characteristics Community college students in both science and engineering programs and technician programs shared some characteristics that distinguish them from 4-year college students: they were older and more likely to be firstgeneration college students; they were more likely to be working while enrolled, and when working, to work more hours than those 4-year college students who worked; and they were more likely to require developmental education (see Table 2-7)
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30 28 30 30 19 1 Developmental Education in First Year Any 69 64 72 68 31 39 Math 59 56 61 59 23 31 English 14 13 15 18 6 8 Reading 15 15 16 19 4 6 SOURCE: Van Noy and Zeidenberg (2014, Table 3)
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From page 45... ...
A related difference is in loans: as shown in Table 2-8, STEM students in 4-year institutions were more likely to take out student loans while in college than students in community colleges, 62 percent and 47 percent, respectively. They also had higher student loans 6 years after their initial enrollment: the average was $21,143 for 4-year students and $15,245 for community college students.
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From page 46... ...
46 TABLE 2-8 Financial Characteristics of STEM Students at 2-Year and 4-Year Institutions Students at Students at 2-Year Institutions 4-Year Institutions Financial Science and Non- NonCharacteristics All STEM Engineering Technician STEM STEM STEM Price of Attendance in First Year $6,896 $6,807 $7,219 $6,601 $18,885 $17,957 Expected Family Contribution in First Year $9,748 $10,079 $9,105 $8,241 $13,987 $13,045 Percentage with Student Loans after 6 Years 47% 45% 52% 40% 62% 64% Average Student Loan among Those with Loans $15,245 $14,163 $17,007 $13,438 $21,143 $21,042 after 6 Years SOURCE: Van Noy and Zeidenberg (2014, Table 4)
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TABLE 2-9 Enrollment Patterns of STEM Students, by Subfield, at 2-Year and 4-Year Institutions (in percentage) Students at Students at 2-Year Institutions 4-Year Institutions All Science and Non- NonEnrollment Patterns STEM Engineering Technician STEM STEM STEM Average Enrollment Intensity Always full time 33 36 32 27 68 65 Always part time 13 8 15 22 1 2 Mixed part time and full time 53 55 53 51 31 33 Constancy of Attendance/Number of Stopouts 0 47 49 46 50 71 72 1 41 43 39 35 22 21 2+ 12 8 15 15 7 7 Institutional Attendance Attend only one institution 49 33 59 62 75 74 Traditional transfer 25 41 16 19 NA NA Attend multiple institutions, swirling 26 26 25 19 25 26 SOURCE: Van Noy and Zeidenberg (2014, Table 5)
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From page 48... ...
Thus, the loss of STEM aspirants prior to declaring a major is not represented in this analysis. Community college STEM students switch out of STEM at a higher rate than 4-year students in STEM majors (28% and 22%, respectively; for more details, see Table 2-10)
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From page 49... ...
. About 30 percent of STEM community college students had either earned a credential or were still enrolled in STEM, and about 33 percent had either attained a credential or were still enrolled in a non-STEM field (Van Noy and Zeidenberg, 2014; see Table 2-11)
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In addition, 16 percent of all STEM students were still enrolled in STEM 6 years after initial enrollment (19% of science and engineering students and 14% of technician students)
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First, more than 80 percent of the credentials awarded t by for-profit institutions were in health professions and related programs, compared with just over 50 percent of the credentials awarded by public and private nonprofit institutions (Kinser, 2014)
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In 2012, the University of Phoenix online campus -- the largest postsecondary institution in the United States -- awarded 20,798 STEM credentials, mostly associate's and bachelor's degrees in the health professions. It has also added new STEM fields of study (e.g., computer networking, security, and administration)
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70 60 50 40 Public 30 Private Private for-profit Percentage 20 10 0 American Asian Black or Hispanic or Native White Two or more Race/ Indian or African Latino Hawaiian or Races ethnicity Alaska Native American Other Pacific unknown Islander FIGURE 2-8 STEM credentials awarded from public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit, by students' race and ethnicity, in 2012. SOURCE: Kinser (2014)
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The characteristics of students vary greatly across STEM disciplines, with rates of minority and female participation lowest in computer science, physics, and engineering. The completion rates for students who aspire to a STEM degree remain lower than in non-STEM fields.
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From page 55... ...
. Intensity and attachment: How the chaotic enrollment patterns of com munity college students relate to education outcomes.
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From page 56... ...
. Community Colleges: Playing an Important Role in the Education of Science, Engineering, and Health Graduates.
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From page 57... ...
. Crossing the Boundaries: STEM Students in Four-Year and Community Colleges.
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