Diversity in Engineering Bachelor’s Degrees Awarded 2011-2020

A multitude of efforts over the past decade have attempted to increase the representation of underrepresented minorities in engineering. However, recent data show mixed results—ranging from small gains to barely measurable increases to minor drops. Total Hispanic engineering graduates, for example, grew from 8.5 percent of all bachelor’s degrees awarded in 2011 to 13.1 percent in 2020. The proportion of Black graduates, however, barely changed, rising from 4.2 percent to 4.5 percent over the same time span, while the percent of American Indian/Alaskan Natives declined steadily, from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent. We can compare these results to changes in the population of college-age students. The gap between the percent of engineering bachelor’s degrees awarded for each underrepresented minority group and each group’s representation in the college-age population has remained relatively unchanged from 2011 to 2020.

Source: Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology, American Society for Engineering Education, 2011 to 2020. National Center for Education Statistics digest (https://bit.ly/2Xz4YeY). This work is part of an ongoing project on the effects of COVID-19 on engineering education funded by NSF-EEC Award #1748840. Any views expressed are those of the individual author and do not necessarily represent the views of the National Science Foundation.
Note: ASEE uses the definition of underrepresented minority for the engineering fields from NSF’s Science and Engineering Indicators report (https://bit.ly/3zkyMso)