Most STEM Majors Don’t Finish Degrees
Credit: Monty Rakusen / DigitalVision / Getty Images- A new report from the Common App says although more than half of college students enter as STEM majors, most don’t complete degrees in those fields.
- Degree completion rates are lower for people of color, lower-income students, and first-generation students.
- Students from these groups often arrive at college with less high school preparation in STEM fields.
- College completion rates lag among underrepresented students regardless of major.
New data from the Common App shows that most students entering college as STEM majors don’t complete their degrees in these fields.
The report, “Tracking Persistence in STEMM,” traces the trajectory of 786,000 students applying through the Common App in the 2016-2017 academic year.
For the purposes of this study, the Common App borrows the “STEMM” acronym from the STEMM Opportunity Alliance, launched in 2022 by the Biden administration. The additional “M” stands for “medicine,” complementing science, technology, engineering, and math.
In this case, “medicine” doesn’t mean the study of medicine in medical schools, which of course isn’t an undergraduate pursuit, but rather fields such as health sciences, nursing, kinesiology, and public health.
About half (53%) of college applicants in this pool expressed interest in majoring in a STEMM field, although that figure was 72% among Asian American students. Women were more interested in biology and health, while men focused more on computer science and engineering.
Health was also the most popular field of interest among people of color and first-generation students.
Yet despite this level of popularity, just under half of students intending to pursue STEMM majors had earned a bachelor’s degree in one of these fields after six years. This tracks almost evenly between men (48%) and women (47%).
Among students heading toward non-STEMM fields, 58% of women and 52% of men completed degrees in their fields.
That difference results largely from students switching majors. Almost one-fifth (18%) of women and 14% of men left STEMM majors, while only 7% of women and 6% of men abandoned non-STEMM majors.
But the real story lies in completion rates among underrepresented students.
Although more than half of white and Asian American students earned a STEMM degree within six years, only one-third of first-generation and Latino/a students did so, and 28% of Black students completed their studies in a STEMM field.
What’s more, 51% of students from families with household incomes above the national median completed STEMM programs, and only 38% of students from lower-income households finished their degrees in those fields.
“Our research finds many more talented STEMM aspirants from underrepresented backgrounds applying for college than completing it,” the Common App’s report notes.
The report doesn’t posit any theories as to why these gaps exist, though some related stats offer clues.
First-generation applicants were far less likely than “continuing” generation students to participate in STEMM extracurricular activities (27% vs. 44%) or take multiple Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate STEMM courses (22% vs. 39%) during high school.
Similarly, Black and Latino/a high school students were less likely to participate in such learning experiences than their white and Asian American counterparts.
So students arrived at college with different levels of preparation before embarking on a challenging STEMM journey, which might help explain the varying completion rates.
That would be the headline — completion rates in STEMM programs lag among underrepresented minority and first-generation students — but for this: The same holds true regardless of major.
Yes, similar patterns exist among students with an interest in non-STEMM majors.
Among white students, 68% of non-STEMM applicants completed any bachelor’s degree within six years, compared to 69% of STEMM applicants. Asian American non-STEMM applicants had a completion rate of 68% compared to 71% for those with an initial interest in STEMM fields.
Black students also showed nearly identical degree completion rates despite majors (43% for non-STEMM applicants vs. 45% for STEMM applicants), as did Latino/a students (52% and 54%, respectively).
Among first-generation students, 50% of STEMM applicants and 47% of non-STEMM applicants completed degrees, compared to 71% and 69%, respectively, for continuing-generation students.
And 68% of STEMM applicants and 66% of non-STEMM applicants from higher-income families completed degrees, compared to their lower-income STEMM (55%) and non-STEMM (51%) counterparts.
The Common App concludes its findings “suggest that barriers to college access and success remain that disproportionately impact applicants in underrepresented groups, regardless of their fields of interest” and that “building diversity in STEMM may thus mean considering college access and success more broadly.”
Jackson Sternberg, a public relations specialist for the Common App, told BestColleges in an email that “future research briefs unpacking enrollment, persistence, and degrees by demographic groups regardless of major interest are in development.”
Such research would be a valuable resource for higher education leaders and policymakers trying to understand and improve college completion rates across the board.
While the focus on STEMM majors is justified in light of the growing student interest in these fields, the real story pertains to persistent degree completion gaps based on race and ethnicity, income, and first-generation status.