Broadening the search for minority science and engineering doctoral starts

This analysis looked at doctorate completion in science and engineering (S&E) by underrepresented minorities: blacks, Hispanics and Indian Americans. These are the groups we must increasingly depend upon to make up for shortfalls in science and engineering doctorate production among American citizens. These shortfalls derive from truncated birth rates among white people, for the most part. The analysis answered several questions officials will need to know the answers to if we are to plan effectively to develop the talents of these individuals. Specifically, the National Science Foundation asked us to look at the feasibility of involving nontraditional minority science and engineering graduates (baccalaureates at 25+) as doctoral starts, along with minority S&E graduates who had taken jobs with corporations to pay off student loans and military personnel involved in S&E study and S&E work (see NSF report of research under grant SED-9107756). We found that nontraditional minority S&E doctorate recipients matched their traditional counterparts in elapsed time to degree and similar indicators. They had less in the way of support for doctoral study, however. We found that minority S&E graduates who took jobs in corporations were keenly interested in returning to campus to complete degrees. We also found that many bright minority youngsters are studying S&E subjects in the Community College of the Air Force and in U.S. Army SOC colleges. Some have enrolled in baccalaureate programs on university campuses and plan to continue on to the PhD. We concluded that money is important in tapping these talent pools to make up for the demographically driven shortfalls discussed above.