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The views expressed in this document are the editors’ and authors’ alone. They do not necessarily reflect the institutions for which they work.

Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................................vi

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................1

Part I. What We Know ...............................................................................................................................5

Chapter 9. Two Ships Passing in the Night: Science Careers and Science Education
Paula M. Rayman ...................................................................................................63

Postscript ..................................................................................................................................................87

Editor and Author Biographical Sketches ...............................................................................................94

This collection would not have been possible without the generous support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. We are grateful to the Foundation not only for making this volume possible, but also for their continuing commitment to the collection and analysis of data on research, education, and careers in science and engineering. Michael Teitelbaum, Sloan Project Director, deserves special thanks, both as a contributor and as a colleague to the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology.

We cannot express the depth of our appreciation to Eleanor Babco and the dedicated staff of the Commission. Eleanor has worked diligently to help us transform an all-day symposium held at a AAAS meeting into a timely volume designed for a variety of audiences and purposes. And she did it in record time!

Finally, as editors we are proud to acknowledge the individuals who contributed to the collection. They responded to our intermittent hectoring for the better part of a year with chapters that reflect the highest standards of scholarship and caring. We are blessed by their collegiality and devotion to the cause of human resource development.

This collection grows out of an all-day symposium that we organized for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which was held in February 2000 in Washington, DC.* The origins of the book, however, extend far deeper into a community, a literature, and our respective efforts as policy-conscious scholars to understand a problem for U.S. society that persists, nags, and frankly torments us – the determinants of who participates in science and technology.

The AAAS symposium sought to honor the memory of two close colleagues who were instrumental in harvesting the research, programmatic, and policy lessons of human resource development for science and technology (S&T). Through the Washington, DC-based data and analytic organization known as the Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology (CPST) <www.cpst.org>, Betty Vetter, the Commission’s long-time executive director, and Alan Fechter, its past president and Executive Director, Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel at the National Research Council, inspired most of the authors in this volume.

The work of Betty Vetter and Alan Fechter illuminated the formidable challenges posed by changing demographic, education, hiring, and career trends affecting S&T. As a decidedly data-based assembly, we assert that the latest information, scrutinized for accuracy and formatted for use by major categories of stakeholders – researchers, educators, administrators, students, and policymakers – is the preferred route to informed action. Those featured here have long been dedicated to deepening and applying – from classroom to boardroom – their understanding of supply, demand, composition, and utilization of science and engineering personnel.

The last comprehensive effort to frame human resource issues facing S&T was the 1994 book, Who Will Do Science?, edited by Pearson and Fechter. Although much has changed with the turn of the century, too much has regrettably remained the same. From educational preparation to workforce entry, promotion, and leadership, some segments of the population are welcomed and cultivated as scientists and engineers. Other segments that comprise a growing fraction of the population, start behind and stay behind. Too few – notably students of color, women, and persons with disabilities – catch up, persevere, excel, and complete degrees.

* The Richard Tapia addition to this collection was produced in preparation for a national forum held October 1999 in Houston, TX, and has been captured in "Promoting National Minority Leadership in science and Engineering: A Report on Proposed actions." Richard Tapia, Daryl Chubin, and Cynthia Lanius, Rice University, October 2000 http://ceee.rice.edu/Books/DV/leadership/index.html.

Our rationale is one that we hope other stakeholders embrace: In the 21^st century, S&T is too important to American, indeed global, society, to allow its human resources to remain unplanned, uncoordinated, market-driven afterthoughts of a university-centered R&D system. We continue to draw certain segments of the population, repel others, import many, and waste much. Indeed, human resource issues encompass all sectors of the economy, types of institutions, career paths, and the composition of "talent pools" advancing throughout formal education and into the workforce.

Therefore, questions about participation – disaggregated by gender, race, ethnicity, disability, citizenship status, age, field, degree level, work activity, industry, and many more familiar dimensions of analysis – dominate this collection. But we offer something far different from a "data dump." The book looks at all aspects of human resource development and utilization together. This approach has two advantages: first, people are seen as the main business of science and technology, not a byproduct of research and the decentralized, uneven, U.S. system of early childhood through postdoctoral preparation; and second, a more realistic examination is possible of institutional roles, responsibilities, and practices that will benefit the system as well as individuals within it – not just some participants, certain career choices, and select organizations.

Lest we forget, the Federal Government has intervened in the process of human resource development since at least the GI Bill, the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, Title IX in 1972, and the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990. At the graduate level, Federal policy has always favored scientists and engineers as a national resource. But to this day, we have no Federal human resource development policy for S&T, last promised in the 1994 Clinton-Gore blueprint, Science in the National Interest.

However, the Clinton Administration has produced two reports germane to the topic at hand: Meeting American’s Needs for the Scientific and Technological Challenges of the Twenty-First Century, A White House Roundtable Dialogue for President Clinton’s Initiative on Race (produced by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, May 1999), and Ensuring a Strong U.S. Scientific, Technical, and Engineering Workforce in the 21^st Century, A Report of the National Science and Technology Council (March 2000). In addition, Land of Plenty, the Report of the Congressional Commission on the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology Development (September 2000), details the national imperative of a diverse workforce.

Given the repeal of affirmative action programs as we know them, the influx of foreign nationals in our graduate schools, and the technological challenges posed to education (especially K-16) by e-commerce, there is an array of human resource issues to weigh for action by all of us. The scholars here seek to do just that.

The collection distinguishes "What We Know" about who is being recruited, educated, and trained for careers in science and technology from "What We Need To Know." Moreover, it identifies the data gaps, what information is needed to close them, and what issues emerge from human resource dilemmas of preparation and utilization? Then the authors turn to "What Can We Do?" to discuss the policies and strategies that have worked and need to be institutionalized, or transferred to new settings. What are the startup and continuing costs of such efforts that we can expect to incur?

The three sections of the collection feature timely data and analyses that would be of practical use to researchers, educators, administrators, and policymakers alike. The text accompanying the numbers is short and interpretive. A concluding essay serves as a postscript for underscoring not only issues, but also an agenda for research and policy action.

In addition to use as a source in research, the collection could be used as a supplementary text in courses focused on human resources, from studies of work and the professions to science, technology, and society; public policy; management of technology to education, gender, or ethnic studies. Each section is preceded by a brief description that puts them into the context of human resource issues of the day. In addition, we offer a list of questions that prompted the original papers or anticipated themes that were likely to emerge from the discussion.

We are writing this on a frigid morning in December 2000 when a headline on the front page of the Washington Post "Metro" section announces "Counting in the Math Field – 3 Ph.D. Candidates Become Trailblazers at U-Md. Graduation." The story warms us, but a chill lingers. Of the 1119 Ph.D.s in mathematics awarded in 1999, only five were earned by African American women. Three awarded by one institution in 2000 is spectacular – but the exception, to be sure. In all fields of science and engineering, doctorates received annually by minorities – African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians – remain in the hundreds. Women in these fields, while growing in number, earned around 7000 Ph.D.s in 1998.

Such disaggregated trends describe the pool of scientists and engineers – from formation in elementary and secondary education through college enrollment and subsequent degree-taking. Description alone does not account for the factors influencing who is prepared, selects a certain major, completes a degree, aspires to a particular career, and achieves in ways that reflect positively on science and engineering. As one of the new math Ph.D.s observes in the Post article, even at the graduate level, "When young women get into these classes where the teachers are men, the teachers call on the men more often. It’s not that women don’t have a knack for it, it’s that they’re not encouraged."

This section asks "who is participating in S&T education and employment?" It establishes an empirical baseline by providing a rich disaggregated view of who is being prepared for, and who is advancing through, successive stages of S&T degree-taking. Opportunities are not uniform. Members of different groups and categories experience different classroom "climates" and react differently. Some leave, other resolve to persist. All as a result are probably changed significantly as personalities and professionals.

Babco and Golladay characterize, through major databases, the national workforce: its size, education, occupational specialization, principal work activities, mobility, and likely future composition given the issues of aging, citizenship, and quality. Czujko focuses on a single field, physics, during the last decade of the 20^th century. It was a time of decline of interest in this college major, and perhaps more, but surely the "pipeline" metaphor should be abandoned for a construct that captures the complexity of education and career choice. Fox hones in on women in science and engineering, summarizing their choices and outcomes in education and academic performance. She concludes that "the relationship between gender, education, and status . . . is not a simple, linear progression." George, Van Horne, and Malcom examine the shifting ground of affirmative action and how changes in law and policy are affecting graduate school enrollments of underrepresented minorities in science and engineering at our research universities. The results are not pretty and the trend lines are ominous. Finally, Kuh ponders for the S&T workforce what the Clinton Administration put on the national agenda: does the workforce look like America? Because diversity includes immigrants, U.S. minorities, and women, she asks what constitutes "underrepresentation" and reminds us that denominators matter.

While each reader can decide, based on these chapters, what it is we know and with what confidence, there are some questions to bear in mind:

1. Graduate enrollments in science and engineering (S&E) have declined for five consecutive years. Yet demand and hiring is brisk in a robust economy. What do these trends portend? And how does the national "big picture" offer misleading views once trends are disaggregated by major demographic, disciplinary, and sectoral categories?

2. Since the S&E workforce is projected to grow three times faster than other occupations, what are the primary challenges that national data illuminate – aging, sectoral differences in opportunity, increasing opportunity by those traditionally underparticipating?

3. Both the "single" and "double bind" hypotheses continue to be sustained empirically, i.e., being a woman, a minority, or both is a deterrent to success in S&E. What, then, are the prospects of career opportunity and advancement of women, and especially women of color, in S&E?

4. What do projections – disputed by some – on an IT worker shortage tell us about planning and deploying human resources nationally in an industry that is key to our economic future? What are the risks in crafting policies that hinge on such projections or other data that defy Census or Bureau of Labor Statistics categories and reflect a volatile global economy?

5. What does the gravitation of foreign students to graduate programs in certain fields, notably computer science and engineering and mathematics, coupled with the relative lack of interest by U.S. students in those fields, suggest to analysts of education and employment trends? How can such trends be used, for example, to inform admissions, recruitment, hiring, and promotion decisions?

The nation’s Scientific and Technological (S&T) workforce is critical as the country faces the challenges of globalization, technology, and equity in the next century. This group will determine the nation’s ability to provide for its citizens and to compete effectively in the global marketplace, and to continue to improve the quality of life. This chapter provides information that addresses the following basic questions about the S&T workforce:

Data for the 1990s permit a closer examination of issues relating to the S&T workforce and its components than has been possible in previous decades. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has addressed its responsibility to identify, describe, and track the S&T workforce and its characteristics through its unified database, SESTAT (for Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System). The system was put in place in the 1990s in response to the recommendations of a panel that examined NSF’s reporting on scientists and engineers. Details of the system are summarized below. Data from the system are used to address the questions. This review presents information on those employed in S&T occupations, but will also emphasize those persons holding PhD degrees in science and engineering fields.

The SESTAT data base provides information on an estimated 10.6 million persons in the workforce in 1997 who had at least a bachelor’s degree in a science or engineering (S&E) field or had a bachelor’s degree in any field and were employed in an S&T occupation in 1990. The data base also contains information on an additional group of individuals (nearly 2 million persons) holding bachelor’s degrees who were not in the labor force in 1997 but who remain part of the system because they met one of the criteria for inclusion in an earlier survey round, usually education in a science or engineering field. The full SESTAT file for 1997 contains records on an estimated 12.5 million persons. About 10.1 million of those persons were employed in 1997.

Data on the S&T workforce in this chapter are drawn from the NSF’s database, SESTAT. The database contains national estimates of surveys of individuals conducted in 1993 and biennially thereafter during the decade. Details of the surveys and the integrated database, with notations on its features and its limitations, are explained in SESTAT: A Tool for Studying Scientists and Engineers in the United States.

The individuals included in the SESTAT database have at least a bachelor’s degree, though not necessarily in science or engineering. Estimates for numbers of individuals who have earned bachelors or higher degrees in science and engineering fields since 1990 have been added to the database during the decade. Each of the surveyed individuals was asked about educational history and demographic characteristics and also about their occupations, employers and employment characteristics, work activities, and salary.

Estimates of the size of the S&T workforce can vary significantly depending on how one chooses to classify a scientist or engineer. If only those persons employed in an S&T occupation, narrowly defined, are included there were approximately 3.4 million in this workforce in the United States in 1997. If, however, one wishes to include those persons with at least a bachelor’s degree in a science or engineering field and who were employed, the group expands to more than 10 million individuals. The relationship between the "employed in S&T occupations" and "educated in science and engineering fields." is portrayed in Table 1.

Which jobs are considered parts of S&T occupations, and which are not? Respondents to the various SESTAT surveys were asked to designate their occupation from a Job Code list containing over 120 options, including both S&T and non-S&T occupations. Most data summaries group individuals into 5 broad S&T categories, or a more detailed list of 25 S&T occupations. The five broad S&T categories, and the number of persons in each in 1997, are:

Several occupations not traditionally considered S&T occupations also are of interest because they often require considerable technical background and are the occupations of substantial percentages of persons with formal education in S&E fields. These include managers and administrators, health and related occupations, and teachers of subjects that are not in the narrow list of S&T occupations. The participation of persons with education in S&E fields who are working in these occupations will be examined below.

A majority, 57 percent, of persons in S&T occupations have a bachelor’s degree as their highest degree. Master’s degrees are the highest degrees for an additional 29 percent, and 14 percent hold a doctorate degree (Table 2). These proportions vary dramatically by broad occupational categories. Among the broad groups, a majority of those in the largest group, the engineers, 67 percent, hold bachelor’s degrees as their highest degree, with computer and mathematical scientists showing nearly as high a proportion, 65 percent. As a subset of those within each broad occupational group, those identified as holding the occupation of a teacher in postsecondary education for a related field show very high proportions of PhD degrees—more than half in each group except computer and mathematical scientists, where 37 percent hold the PhD.

The S&T workforce includes persons either educated as or working as scientists and engineers. There were about 10.6 million of these individuals employed in 1997. Of this group, 69 percent were working in business and industry, 18 percent in education and 13 percent in government (Table 3). Of these employed persons, it has been noted that about a third—or 3.4 million—were working in S&T occupations. Sector of employment varies for occupational categories. Computer and mathematical scientists, and engineers, were overwhelmingly employed in industry (80 percent and 81 percent respectively), and physical scientists also were more likely to be employed in industry (55 percent). However, life scientists were more concentrated in academe, with 48 percent working there compared to only 32 percent in industry. Social scientists were more evenly divided between the two sectors: 45 percent employed in academe, compared to 43 percent in industry. Life scientists were more likely to be working in government compared with other scientists and engineers.

The sector of employment for those in the S&T workforce who hold PhDs is more likely to be academe than it is for the total workforce. Even so, while higher proportions of PhDs in occupational groups are employed in educational institutions, only in the Computer and Mathematical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Social Sciences are a majority of the doctoral S&Es employed in educational institutions of any level (Figure 1).

The S&T workforce is engaged in a variety of activities. Among all persons in the S&T workforce in 1997, managing and supervising was the most common work activity, with 51 percent of this workforce reporting that they spent at least 10 percent of a typical work week engaged in the activity (Table 4). Computer applications were the second most frequently identified activity, followed by employee relations and sales.

Work activities were related to employment sector and occupational category. For doctoral scientists and engineers working in academe, regardless of occupational category, teaching and research were the most frequently cited work activities (Figure 2). In private industry, activities of doctoral scientists and engineers were much more varied with research the predominant activity for Physical scientists, Life Scientists, and Social Scientists.

The S&T workforce is aging. Of those in the workforce who received a degree in a science or engineering field and were working in an S&T occupation in 1997 (about 3.4 million individuals) over half (53.6 percent) were over the age of 40. This compares with 48 percent who were over the age of 40 in 1993. Within the entire S&T workforce, about 40 percent of scientists and engineers were under the age of 40 in 1997, compared with 46 percent in 1993.

Does Education in an S&E Discipline Lead to Employment in an S&E Occupation?

It is possible to examine the relationship between formal degrees and occupation for individuals in the SESTAT database. Both highest degree and degree order are specified, with field of degree provided for all. The database reveals that individuals hold virtually any and all combinations of degrees. Among all individuals who are included in the full SESTAT data base by virtue of EITHER a degree in a S&E field or a S&T occupation, a substantial majority report a job code that places them outside of the traditional group of S&T occupations. Of the total employed in 1997—including those educated in S&E (i.e., having at least one degree in an S&E field) or holding an S&T job in 1993--the great majority (69%) were working in jobs that would not be considered an S&T occupation.

It is informative to look more closely at the large group whose occupations are in the "Non-S&T" group, and the role the S&E education might play in their work activity. One common approach is to look at the highest degree. Another option is to look at most recent, or last, degree. If an individual’s highest degree was in an S&E field, even then less than half of the population is employed in an S&T occupation. What jobs do these persons hold? Within the five largest job categories that are not considered S&T occupations, varying proportions of individuals reported that their highest degree in S&E was closely related to their job (Table 5). Together this group of five jobs accounts for about 2/3 of those in jobs not considered S&T jobs, yet whose highest degree was in S&E. The shares of each occupational group that believe their highest degree is closely related to their job range from 69 percent for those teaching, to only 10 percent for those in sales.

Many jobs use skills that require some background in S&E, and many with formal education in S&E find their knowledge useful in a wide range of jobs. Fine distinctions between S&T occupations and non-S&T occupations are clearly subject to different interpretations. The data suggest that a more productive and expanded view of what constitutes the S&T workforce would not only be more accurate but also would broaden the discussion of essential skills, educational needs for the modern day workforce, and employment policy.

The patterns of degree awards, including fields of study and order of degrees, and their relationship to jobs, has been studied in detail by the Engineering Workforce Project at the NSF. Two results from the project demonstrate some major findings about the relationships between education and occupation for engineers, and also suggest that similar analyses for other occupational groups would yield insights.

First, there is a lack of a clear-cut linkage between education and occupation, as demonstrated by the diagram relating these two attributes (Figure 3). When the analysis of education allows for noting ANY degree in an engineering field, there still are a substantial number, approaching half, who have a degree in engineering but do not hold an engineering occupation. (Of the 2.3 million persons with engineering degrees, 1.1 million do NOT hold engineering occupations.)

NOTE: engineering graduates have a bachelor’s or higher degree in engineering. A person whose principal occupation is an engineer may or may not be an engineering graduate.

Degree combinations for engineers were carefully examined to identify various combinations and their relationships to occupations. A frequently cited combination is engineering and business. Looking just at the population of engineers holding master’s degrees (no higher degrees) does suggest that this combination may increase the likelihood that engineers will hold senior management positions. However, the likelihood that having a business degree will increase the probability of working as a senior manager is more pronounced in the earlier age group than in the older. More research is needed to determine whether these different patterns are driven by age, degree combination and/or level, some combinations of these variables, or unknown factors such as the types of managerial jobs these more recent engineering graduates hold. It has been demonstrated that almost all of the salary differential between male and female engineers is attributable to years of experience.

Given the sector of employment and the work activities varying by sector, it is highly informative to examine the views of recent doctorates (those receiving degrees between 1990 and 1996) as to the adequacy of their doctoral programs. Of the three fields examined—engineering, physical sciences and computer science—there is little difference by field of PhD (Figure 4). Those PhDs in all three fields felt their subject matter knowledge was very adequate, with nearly 70 percent of the engineers rating their technical knowledge as very adequate. However, a sharply contrasting view was expressed in the management/administrative skills category where more than half of the PhDs in all three disciplines rated their skills as inadequate.

Job mobility is cited as a factor critical to understanding the modern workforce. In addition to asking for job histories, the most recent cycle of SESTAT surveys asked those who changed jobs why they had done so. Their responses identified factors that should be noted by employers as well as analysts of the workforce. Of the slightly more than one-fourth of those who changed jobs (excluding from the examined group those who had only recently completed degrees to join the workforce), pay and/or promotions were the most common reason cited for job change (Figure 5). Working conditions was cited as the next most common reason for slightly under half of those changing employers, including those whose job they identified as of the same type. Career change was cited frequently by those changing jobs with the same employer or with a different employer.

The implications of these responses are that members of the S&T workforce respond to opportunities and needs in much the same way as others; the myths of S&T workers devoted to their disciplines above all else are not supported by the data. The S&T workforce responds to opportunity and acts independently, with members willing to move for many reasons including new opportunities and greater pay.

The effects of new entrants on the pool of S&T faculty are difficult to see within the relatively brief time span of a few years. Examining cross-sectional information about faculty holding PhDs does permit some inferences to be made. Overall impacts of growing diversity in degree awards to previously underrepresented groups may be seen through comparisons of faculty by age groups.

While men follow a fairly traditional pattern, two groups of particular interest, women and underrepresented minorities (persons who are African American, Hispanic, and American Indian) who have received their degrees relatively recently, suggest by their distribution that gains have been made by those receiving degrees within the last 10 years, and also that the future will definitely offer a more diversified distribution (Figure 6).

An important view of the future may be seen by examining the trends in degree awards. Persons receiving degrees are an important source of new entrants to the S&T workforce. Because the numbers added to the workforce from this important flow are considerably less than those that constitute the stock of the existing workforce are, change may seem almost imperceptible. Yet the progress of historically underrepresented groups of individuals in S&T occupations has been of great concern to those interested in building a diverse workforce that resembles the entire population.

Women have increased their percent of earned degrees in S&E fields at all levels since 1970, rising from 28 percent of S&E degrees to over 48 percent in 1997 at the bachelor’s level (Figure 7). Their proportion has increased more dramatically at the doctorate level, where the proportion of degrees to women in S&E fields rose from 9 percent in 1970 to nearly 33 percent in 1997. Increases at the master’s level have been intermediate between the bachelor’s and doctorate degree levels.

Increases in the proportion of S&E degrees to underrepresented minorities have been at best gradual over the past 10 years. This group earned under 10 percent of S&E bachelor’s degrees to U.S. citizens and permanent residents in 1989 and increased that percentage to just under 15 percent by 1997 (Figure 8). At the doctorate level, underrepresented minorities earned less than 5 percent of the S&E degrees awarded to U.S. citizens and permanent residents in 1989, and increased that percentage to only 7 percent in 1997.

The proportion of all S&E doctorates awarded to underrepresented minorities is even smaller when considered as part of the total group of doctorates. The proportion of doctorate degree awards to foreign citizens is highest at the doctorate level. U.S. citizens earned 67 percent of the S&E degrees from U.S. universities in 1989 as well as 1997.

Another useful indicator of the future S&T workforce is the enrollment in graduate science and engineering programs. Enrollment totals in S&E fields have been declining for several years. The recent increase, noted in 1999, is due to the increased enrollment of students who hold temporary visas; the enrollment of U.S. citizens and persons on permanent visas has continued to decline. The overall pattern of decline does not hold for all discipline fields or for all demographic groups. Declines in physical and mathematical sciences, engineering and computer science contrast with increases in biosciences and health fields. Increased enrollment of graduate students who are African American, Hispanic, Native American or Asian contrast with sharp declines in enrollment of whites.

As yet unmentioned is a group of persons who are contributing to the S&T workforce but who do not hold the traditional credential of a bachelor’s degree in any field. The size of this population, the level and type of any formal education or training it may have received, and the nature of its contribution to overall economic productivity remains unmeasured.

The Scientific and Technological Workforce is difficult to define precisely, as this chapter points out. However, regardless of our exact definition of the S&T workforce, it is important to reaffirm how critical it is to our nation as it faces challenges to continue improving the quality of life for our own citizens and as it continues to compete in the global marketplace in the coming millennium.

National Science Foundation, http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs. This site provides statistics on United States scientists and engineers. It includes information on the database and its components, preformatted tables and a public use data file that can be used to generate custom tables.

National Science Foundation, Characteristics of Science and Engineering Doctorate Recipients: Selected Trend Tables 1993, 1995, and 1997. SRS 00-412. http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/srs00412/start.htm.

This chapter focuses on physics, the field that I have been studying for nearly twenty years. Physics is a comparatively small field. Out of every 1000 bachelors degrees awarded each year in the U.S., fewer than 3 ½ are in physics. Similarly, only about 3% of all PhDs are awarded in physics. Yet despite its size, the trends we see in physics are not unique. They can and do tell us something about other fields. Thus, while the data focus on physics, our understanding of these trends has much broader applicability. Due to space constraints, my coverage of these trends will be superficial. For more detailed information, visit our web site at www.aip.org/statistics. One doesn’t have to be a physicist to see that these data (Figure 1) represent a system under stress. One doesn’t have to be a social scientist to see that the trends are being driven by more than a passion for knowledge and the desire to add to the knowledge base. Degree production is affected, in part, by economic and political developments in both the national and international arenas. The repercussions of World War II, Sputnik, and the international recessions of both 1970 and 1990 are very clear.

The number of physics bachelor’s degrees awarded in 1998 is down to the levels last seen in the late 1950's (Figure 2). The decline during the 1990's in physics bachelors has been steeper at departments that offer a PhD and that, even though the overall trend appears to have bottomed out, the bachelors production at PhD departments continues to tick downward.

The number of bachelors degrees awarded in physics has been declining during the decade of the 1990's and the number of physics PhDs awarded has declined during the last half of the 1990's. At the same time, the total number of degrees awarded in the U.S. has gone up. Thus, it may be surprising to note that the declines are not unique to physics. Among those fields that declined, physics was not the hardest hit. In addition, these trends are not unique to the U.S. By way of example, graduate enrollments in Germany in physics, chemistry, and several other fields have dropped by half and more during the 1990's.

Where have the students gone and why? There are a number of different causes for the declines we have seen in physics and related disciplines.

Higher education is being driven, to a significant degree, by women. In 1997, women earned 55% of all bachelor’s degrees, but only 19% of physics bachelor’s degrees. In computer science, which declined between 1986 and 1996 (Figure 3), the percentage of those degrees earned by women dropped precipitously. By contrast, in two of the fastest growing bachelors fields - life science and psychology - the majority of degree recipients are women. The participation of women in higher education is not the only factor, but it is a major factor.

There has been an explosion in opportunities. In other words, compared to the past, there are many more fields that individuals can major in that offer intellectual stimulation or financial reward or both. By way of example, during the early 1970's, computer science was routinely part of the mathematics department. Now it is not only a stand alone department, but the title computer and information sciences does not come close to describing the wide array of different tasks that these students are trained to do. Similarly, there has been a dramatic increase over the last 10 years in the number of graduate departments that award degrees in the interface between two or more fields; one of those is often biology. In short, it is no longer possible to sit back and wait for the best students to come to you.

Students’ choices of college major are driven, in part, by their perceptions of the job market and career opportunities. How do students learn about career opportunities and how much do they, in fact, know? The answer is little and the word perception is key. We continue to talk about the bad job market during the early 1990's. Those problems were caused, in large part, by a severe international recession that affected many fields and many countries. In fact, the U.S. is among the few countries to have recovered from that recession. In short, there is an erroneous perception that physics is not doing well in today’s job market.

Physics departments are isolated from the world outside of academe. Many physics departments are still driven by the dominant goal of adding to the knowledge base, that is, conducting basic research and preparing students to become the next generation of basic researchers. Too few faculty understand the remarkable diversity of careers commonly pursued by people with physics degrees. Too few departments have modified their curriculum to address the needs of the majority of their students, that is, those students who do not become PhDs conducting basic research.

Graduate education in physics in the U.S. is arguably the finest in the world. Since the faculty are largely responsible for this status, it is easy to understand why they would both take pride in and focus heavily on their research and on training students to become the next generation of researchers.

However, too many faculty lose sight of the fact that the path from a physics bachelors to a physics PhD is atypical. In fact, the most common career path for a physics bachelor's (about 36%) is to enter the workforce and never earn an advanced degree. The second most common career path is to earn a masters degree in a field other than physics (about 26%) either immediately after earning their bachelors or after having been in the workforce for a period of time. To earn a PhD in physics is the third most common career path accomplished by only about 16% of physics bachelors.

What is the primary cause of the declines in physics enrollments and degrees? As often happens with the most interesting issues, a seemingly simple question turns out to be rather complex.

The very notion of primary cause assumes that there is one force moving the system. It also implies that the system is a unified whole. Both of these assumptions are, of course, incorrect.

First, the system is complex and there may be no one primary cause. Second, the relative impact of each of these causes is probably different in different institutions. Third, the process by which individual students decide on the field in which they eventually earn a bachelors degree may be unique and certainly changes over time.

In physics the vast majority of students report that they were initially attracted to the field out of an interest in the subject matter or a passion for the field. But the factors that attract a student to a particular discipline are not the same as the factors the keep the student studying the field. As Seymour pointed out, few students make up their minds in freshman year of high school. It is common for people to change their minds several times between freshman year in high school and senior year in college. In fact, the decision isn't simply between physics and a related field. It is often between science and not science.

In light of these findings, we should stop referring to the education system as a pipeline. People do not simply flow through the system, with some leakage at different points. Rather the education system is a set of pools, with students flowing into and out of the science pool.

In summary, the world is wonderfully complex and the trends we see are not unique to physics or even to the U.S. If we are to understand what is driving the system at points and in what ways we might affect the outcomes, we need better information. We need a great deal more research into the complex decision matrix that students use in deciding on their college major and how the weighting of those factors changes during the student’s time in the education system.

Women In Science And Engineering: What We Know About Education And Employment

In considering what we know about the education and employment of women in science and engineering (S/E), I concentrate upon doctoral-level scientists. My focus is on doctoral-level scientists for two reasons. First, issues of scientific research and its impact are particularly applicable for this group. Second and relatedly, the training of university students –and in turn, much of the future of science– is at the hands of doctoral-level scientists.

1. Women’s share of doctoral degrees over the past 80 years does not represent a simple trend of increasing proportions over time. The proportions of doctoral degrees awarded to women in the 1920s (12.3%) and the 1930s (11%) are higher than the proportions in the 1940s (8.9%), the 1950s (6.7%), or even the 1960s (7.9%). It was the 1970s before the proportion of doctoral degrees awarded to women (15%) equaled or surpassed the pre-1940 levels (Fox, 1999). Continuing gains were made in the 1980s, a decade during which women earned more than a quarter (26%) of doctoral degrees; and in the 1990s (1990-98), 31% (CPST, 2000: calculated from Table 2-1).

2. S/E encompasses a wide range of fields, and women’s degrees are far more concentrated by field than are men’s. For 1990-98, over three quarters (77%) of doctoral degrees awarded to women in S/E were in psychology, social sciences, and life sciences. The concentration is a very persistent pattern: over the entire 78 year period, 1920-98, 79% of women’s S/E doctoral degrees were concentrated in these fields (CPST, 2000: calculated from Table 2-1).

3. Women are just as apt as men to receive their doctoral degrees from top ranking departments. Across S/E fields, the pattern is one of similarity in doctoral origins of women and men (see Fox, 1999).

4. Data on doctoral origins, however, do not specify the character of that training – matters of inclusion and exclusion, nuances of advising, and evaluative practices as they operate for women and men. My research points to different experiences and outcomes of men and women doctoral students in their departments, research groups, and with advisors (Fox, 1998, 2000, 2001).

For examples: 1) Women are less likely to report that they are taken seriously by faculty, and that they are respected by faculty. 2) Despite strong preferences for collaboration by both men and women students, women report collaborating with fewer graduate students and fewer male faculty. 3) Women are more likely than men to view their relationship with their advisor as one of "student-and-faculty" rather than "mentee-mentor" or colleagues, suggesting greater social distance for women. 4) In outcomes, women students published fewer papers than men in a prior three year period, and are less likely to report that they will, indeed receive their degrees.

Despite obstacles, women with doctoral degrees have progressed through the proverbial educational pipeline; they are a highly select group, who have already survived barriers of selection (both by themselves and by institutions) into S/E fields; and have acquired credentials for high-level participation in the profession. What is happening to them in employment? In summarizing outcomes for women, I focus on academic employment, because in academia ranks are clearly and uniformly specified as professorial levels, and are telling indicators of position. In Table 1, we observe the following patterns, which point toward the relationship between gender and status in S/E.

2. Just as women are concentrated in life sciences, psychology, and social sciences–so, correspondingly, in these, compared to other S/E fields, we find higher proportions of women at each rank.

3. Further, for each field except psychology, the proportion of women at the rank of full professor is meager. In half of the field categories, women are 7% or fewer of the full professors. In addition, studies that control for research productivity show that promotion rates from assistant to associate to full professor are lower and slower for women (Long, Allison, and McGinnis, 1993; Sonnert and Holton, 1995).

Despite the numbers of women with doctoral degrees earned in the 1970s and 1980s, and the passage of years for these women to mature in professional time, the proportion of women who are full professors has not kept pace with the growth of women with doctorates. In 1973, women were 4% of the full professors in S/E fields; in 1987, 7%; in 1993, 10% (see Fox, 1999); and in 1997, only 11.6% (CPST, 2000: Table 5-1).

Twenty years ago, increasing numbers (and proportions) of women began to enter doctoral programs and complete degrees, and it was expected that rank would be "a matter of time" – time for women to mature professionally, and attain high positions. Even allowing up to fifteen years from receipt of doctoral degrees to rank of full professor, women’s degrees are not translating into expected rank over time (these discrepancies are documented in chemistry, in mathematics, and across fields in higher education; see Fox, 1996).

For science as for other fields, the relationship between gender, education, and status is complex – it is not a simple, linear progression of more education among women and improved social and economic status (see Fox, 1996). Practice and policy have tended to focus upon increasing the numbers of women in science. Increasing the numbers of women in science is important – both for reasons of social equity, and for use of talent (Pearson and Fechter, 1994). However, increasing numbers of doctoral-level women in science, by itself, will not necessarily change patterns of gender and status in science and scientific employment. For this, we need to address matters beyond numbers in the educational pipeline (Fox, 1996, 1998, 2000). These include the character and quality of graduate education, range and scope of collaborative opportunities, access to professional networks, and evaluative practices – as they operate for women and under-represented, compared to majority-status, groups.

Doctoral Scientists and Engineers in Academic Institutions,
by Field and Rank, 1997

Field	Total*	Full Professor	Associate Professor	Assistant Professor
Physical Sciences %Women	36,940 13.3	13,770 4.2	6,680 13.5	5,510 26.1
Math & Computer Sciences %Women	18,740 14.2	7,520 6.7	5,470 14.3	4,120 24.1
Life Sciences %Women	68,640 27.8	21,210 13.1	13,120 22.9	13,090 36.7
Psychology %Women	27,190 43.1	9,570 22.5	5,840 44.3	4,790 61.0
Social Sciences %Women	45,510 28.3	18,230 14.9	11,880 32.4	9,150 39.6
Engineering %Women	26,960 6.5	11,230 1.4	6,080 6.3	4,900 13.7
Total, all fields %Women	233,180 25.1	83,670 11.6	51,880 25.7	44,410 36.9

*Total includes instructor/lecturer, other faculty, and "does not apply."
SOURCE: Commission on Professionals in Science and Technology. Professional Women and Minorities: A Total Human Resource Data Compendium [13th edition]. Washington, D.C., 2000: Table 5-1.

Since 1996 a wave of judicial rulings, legislative referenda, and editorial opinions opposing affirmative action has swept across the United States. Given this context, in 1997-98, an American Association for the Advancement of Science study found a precipitous drop in the first-year graduate school enrollment of African American and Hispanic students in all science and engineering fields between 1996 and 1997 in Research I universities. These findings were reported in Losing Ground: Science and Engineering Graduate Education of Black and Hispanic Americans by Shirley M. Malcom, Virginia Van Horne, Catherine D. Gaddy, and Yolanda S. George, 1998. The objective of this study is to determine if the changing climate for affirmative action is continuing to affect the first-year graduate school enrollment of underrepresented minorities in science and engineering in Research I universities. The crux of our findings is that 1998 Science and Engineering first-year graduate student enrollment for underrepresented minorities in selected Research I universities rebounded from the 1997 decline, falling below 1996 enrollment.

AAAS staff surveyed 76 Research I universities with both high levels of R&D expenditures and significant graduate education programs. Universities were asked to provide numbers for first-time (new) graduate student enrollees (full and part-time) for 1994-95, 1995-96, 1996-97, 1997-98, and 1998-99 by schools or departments in computer sciences, engineering, mathematics, natural sciences, psychology, and social sciences. Numbers were requested for total number of students and total U.S. citizens and permanent residents by gender and race. Of the 65 respondents, 42 or 64.6% were able to provide data disaggregated by race. Of these 42 respondents, 30.9% were located in the South, 26.2% in the West, 23.8% in the East and 19.2% in the Midwest. The 42 respondents represent 48% of all Research I universities.

Given the 1998 to 1999 rebound for first-year graduate school enrollment of underrepresented minorities in science and engineering in selected Research I universities, it appears that the anti-affirmative action climate in the United States is one of several factors that negatively affected the 1997 to 1998 enrollments. Since a significantly higher number of underrepresented minorities enrolled in graduate schools in Research I universities for the first time in 1998 to 1999, it is likely that university administrators and faculty were sorting out what admission practices were appropriate and/or legal and possibly put forth more effort in terms of recruitment.

However, first-year graduate school enrollment in engineering in selected Research I universities for U.S. Citizens and Permanent Residents, particularly underrepresented minorities, is still below the 1996 enrollment, perhaps due to the strong job market in these fields. The 1998 enrollment of first-year graduate school students in psychology is also far below the 1996 enrollment. In addition, the 91% increase in mathematics for Hispanics from 1996 to 1998 should be noted.

For more information and continuing updates on minority graduate education see the Making Strides – In Search of Structural Reform in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Graduate Education and the Professoriate, http://ehrweb.aaas.org/mge/.

Year	Total Number of Graduate Students	Total US Citizen & Permanent Residents	Underrepresented Minorities	African Americans	Hispanic Americans
1994	26,937	19,282 (71.6%)	2,180 (8.1%)	1,285 (4.8%)	790 (2.9%)
1995	26,261	18,648 (71.0%)	2,056(7.8%)	1,209 (4.6%)	758 (2.9%)
1996	26,631	18,374 (69.0%)	2,125 (8.0%)	1,191 (4.5%)	836 (3.1%)
1997	23,904	15,881 (66.4%)	1,696 (7.1%)	925 (3.9%)	672 (2.8%)
1998	27,805	17,756 (63.8%)	1,849 (6.6%)	1,070 (3.8%)	688 (2.5%)

*Underrepresented minorities include African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians.

Year	Total Number of Graduate Students	Total US Citizen & Permanent Residents	Underrepresented Minorities*	African Americans	Hispanic Americans
1994	19,486	13,345 (68.5%)	1,290 (6.6%)	691(3.5%)	544 (2.8%)
1995	19,080	12,711 (66.6%)	1,200 (6.3%)	679 (3.6%)	474 (2.5%)
1996	19,126	12,367 (64.6%)	1,221 (6.4%)	629 (3.3%)	540 (2.8%)
1997	17,518	10,984 (62.7%)	978 (5.6%)	471 (2.7%)	446 (2.6%)
1998	20,033	12,570 (62.7%)	1,138 (5.7%)	578 (2.9%)	505 (2.5%)

*Underrepresented minorities include African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians.

	1996	1997	% Change 96 to 97	1998	% Change 97 to 98	% Change 96 to 98
Total	19,126	17,518	-8.4	20,033	+14.4	+4.7
Total US& Permanent Residents	12,367	10,984	-11.2	12,570	+14.4	+1.6
Underrepresented Minorities*	1,221	978	-19.9	1,138	+16.4	-6.8
African Americans	629	471	-25.1	578	+22.7	-8.1
Hispanic Americans	540	446	-17.4	505	+13.2	-6.5

*Underrepresented minorities include African Americans, American Indians, and Hispanic Americans

	1996	1997	% Change 96 to 97	1998	% Change 97 to 98	% Change 96 to 98
Total	26,631	23,904	-10.2	27,805	+16.3	+ 4.4
Total US& Permanent Residents	18,374	15,881	-13.6	17,756	+11.8	- 3.4
Underrepresented Minorities*	2,125	1,696	-20.2	1,849	+ 9.0	-13.0
African Americans	1,191	925	-22.3	1,070	+15.7	-10.2
Hispanic Americans	836	672	-19.6	688	+ 2.4	-17.7

*Underrepresented minorities include African Americans, American Indians, and Hispanic Americans

	1996	1997	% Changes 96 to 97	1998	% Changes 97 to 98	% Change 96 to 98
Computer Sciences	1,923	1,707	-11.2	2,051	+20.2	+ 6.7
Engineering	8,572	7,679	-10.4	8,631	+12.4	+ 0.7
Mathematics	1,097	998	- 9.0	1,244	+24.6	+13.4
Natural Sciences	7,534	7,134	- 5.3	8,107	+13.6	+7.6
Psychology	1,612	996	-38.2	1,105	+10.9	-31.5
Social Sciences	5,893	5,390	- 8.5	6,667	+23.7	+13.1

	1996	1997	% Changes 96 to 97	1998	% Changes 97 to 98	% Change 96 to 98
Computer Sciences	921	776	-15.7	962	+24.0	+ 4.5
Engineering	5,060	4,384	-13.4	4,547	+ 3.7	-10.1
Mathematics	679	567	-16.5	701	+23.6	+ 3.2
Natural Sciences	5,707	5,257	- 7.9	6,073	+15.5	+ 6.4
Psychology	1,508	903	-40.1	988	+ 9.4	-34.5
Social Sciences	4,499	3,994	-11.2	4,198	+ 5.1	- 6.7

	1996	1997	% Changes 96 to 97	1998	% Changes 97 to 98	% Change 96 to 98
Computer Sciences	84	49	-41.7	98	+100	+16.6
Engineering	480	367	-23.5	375	+2.2	-21.9
Mathematics	56	50	-10.7	74	+48	+32.1
Natural Sciences	601	512	-14.8	591	+15.4	- 1.6
Psychology	202	134	-33.7	153	+14.2	-24.2
Social Sciences	702	584	-16.8	628	+ 7.5	-10.5

	1996	1997	% Changes 96 to 97	1998	% Changes 97 to 98	% Change 96 to 98
Computer Sciences	67	29	-56.7	60	+106.9	-10.4
Engineering	202	152	-24.8	157	+ 3.3	-22.3
Mathematics	31	25	-19.4	31	+24.0	0
Natural Sciences	329	265	-19.5	330	+24.5	0
Psychology	98	80	-18.4	86	+ 7.5	-12.2
Social Sciences	464	374	-19.4	406	+8.6	-12.5

Table 9----Percent Changes for First-year Graduate Student Enrollment in Selected Research I Universities by Fields, N=42

	1996	1997	% Changes 96 to 97	1998	% Changes 97 to 98	% Changes 96 to 98
Computer Sciences	16	19	+18.8	30	+57.9	+87.5
Engineering	256	193	-24.6	198	+ 2.6	-22.6
Mathematics	22	24	+ 9.1	42	+75.0	+90.9
Natural Sciences	246	210	-14.6	235	+11.9	- 4.5
Psychology	95	50	-47.4	59	+18.0	-37.9
Social Sciences	702	584	-16.8	628	+ 7.5	-10.5

This chapter focuses on the current state of diversity in the science and technology workforce, including immigrants. In particular, I concentrate on philosophy. The philosophical questions I wish to discuss are what is underrepresentation? How do we recognize it when we see it? And, more fundamentally, why does it matter? If we were to say that the science and engineering workforce should reflect the American population, what would the operational significance of that statement be?

Here’s a simple (and easy) example. Women make up slightly more than half of the American population. They are more than half of baccalaureate degree recipients. They are somewhat less than half of the labor force, they are 33% of S&E doctoral degrees, but still only 22 percent of the S&E labor force. Is there something wrong here? Are women underrepresented? The S&E workforce is becoming feminized but, particularly in the physical sciences, math sciences, and engineering, it doesn’t reflect America at all.

We know that, failing a major military engagement or a revolution in family planning, the share of women in the population is unlikely to change much. So we can ask, is 22% a number we should worry about? I argue that it is, both from the viewpoint of science and engineering as disciplines and from the viewpoint of society as a whole. Science and engineering are impoverished if, for social and cultural reasons, these disciplines deny themselves the very best talent. Science and engineering are poorer for the absence of a woman who might have a fundamental insight or develop an especially clever device. From the point of view of society, we must never forget that women vote. If women are convinced that science and engineering are irrelevant to their world, then support of science and engineering is quite likely irrelevant to their preferences—and has a lower status on the public agenda as a result. Finally, families being what they are, women play a key role in informal education—they are mothers. To the extent that they feel that science and engineering are "hard" and "incomprehensible," that view is inculcated in our children---and science and engineering lose both men and women as a result. I find it remarkable that the share of science and engineering in baccalaureate degrees remains constant at around a third, even as our economic growth depends increasingly on the products of scientific and engineering research. This may be partially the result of a generally held view that science is difficult—and many of our mothers were convinced that it was.

The same arguments hold for ethnic diversity, except more so. The American population is becoming more and more ethnically diverse. We deny ourselves talent if we believe that only white males can do science. Society loses commitment to science, if science remains the domain of white males, even as our society becomes more diverse.

These are generic arguments for reaching out to make science more inclusive. They don’t speak to the question of over- or under- representation. But there is no reason to think that a desirable distribution is uniform with every group being represented according to its proportion in the population. With women, for example, you would expect some inequality if women are more likely to take time out to have children. We would expect more women in those occupations that permit part-time or interrupted careers. For some minority groups, economic inequality might generate a preference for occupations with a higher economic return. It is difficult to object to someone from a poor family preferring to become an MD rather than a biochemist. It is understandable that such a person might choose a career in business rather than in academia. What we are trying to remedy is inequality of opportunity. We do not ask for equality of results.

There is very little blatant discrimination these days. The MIT report on women faculty in the Science Division found that what rankled most were systematic differences in resources: space, teaching loads, and summer money. Further, there was under-representation of women in administrative positions (e.g., department chair) that controlled resources. The problem was not the "old" discrimination of sexist remarks or discriminatory hiring practices. In fact, many of the women would have preferred not to take on administrative duties. They’d rather spend their time doing science. Because women didn’t want to take on positions that would give them less time to do science—and, as a result, found themselves in a less strong negotiating position for academic perks, is something discriminatory going on?

How can you tell if there is under-representation, given that what we observe is results, not opportunity? There is a report that should be coming out in 2001 that looks at differences in a variety of career outcomes for men and women Ph.D.s in science and engineering. One of the techniques used in the report is to estimate logit regressions in which a particular outcome, such as being tenured, depends on virtually everything that can be measured, both demographic measures and career and education characteristics. It turns out that years of experience since the Ph.D. explain a considerable amount of the difference in outcomes between men and women and that difference results from time spent raising children. Are women under-represented among tenured faculty? Yes. But if under-representation of women can be explained by a different pattern of work/family choice than men, is it a cause for concern and policy development? I would argue that it should be—that the scientific workplace should be more flexible and family friendly. But we don’t know if more American women would choose to do science and engineering even if the workplace were more family friendly.

These are difficult questions and they get at the difficulty we encounter when we say a group is "under-represented." I tried one other way to get at differential representation. The notion underlying my approach is the idea of a role model. As is apparent from the numbers cited in previous chapters, the scientific workforce is more diverse today than it has ever been, but it still isn’t very diverse and, especially for women in engineering and the physical sciences and for underrepresented minorities in all fields, it isn’t diverse at all. I have a measure of this that you probably haven’t yet seen. For women, it is a measure of how many graduates there are in a field per faculty member. It is a rough measure of the chance that a member of a particular group may have seen a faculty member in their field that belongs to the same group. It has something to do with the ease with which a student can say, "Yes, there I am ten years from now!" The more constricted at the top is the pipeline, the greater will this ratio be. As can be seen in Figure 1, the ratio, even in 1996, is unambiguously greater for women than for men in all fields. I should add that this measure isn’t about mentoring. Mentoring is about a relationship and may depend as much on intellectual similarity as on gender or ethnicity. Hopefully the pool of potential mentors is greater than the pool of women faculty or it will be an uphill battle to increase the representation of women in fields in the physical sciences and engineering.

SOURCE: National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Studies, 1997 Survey of Doctorate Recipients

In the case of minorities, there are so few faculty members from some groups in some fields that I can’t construct the same measure with publicly available data. So, in Figure 2, I’ve constructed the ratio of bachelor’s degrees to total Ph.D.s. Again, it can be seen that there are much higher ratios for underrepresented minorities than for whites and, in some fields, Asian Americans. This disparity has two implications: 1) Minority students are much less likely to find people who look like them in the scientific work force, and 2) Minority faculty may find that they face much higher demands to mentor and encourage minority students than do their white counterparts. This makes even more imperative the need to expand mentoring of minority students beyond minority faculty.

The lesson to take home about this measure is that increasing diversity in science and engineering must be everybody’s job. There are simply not enough women faculty or minority Ph.D.’s to rely on within group bootstrapping. We need to identify those places where women and minorities thrive and direct them there. Especially in the case of underrepresented minorities, there are too few not to treat each person as special and worthy of encouragement.

Source: National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Studies, 1997 Survey of Doctorate Recipients.

You will notice that "immigration" is in my title and I haven’t talked about it.

I call your attention to the work of Richard and Greg Attiyeh, who found that it was considerably more difficult for non-US citizens to be admitted to graduate school than for US citizens controlling for GRE scores. The 1997 paper by Espenshade and Rodriguez found that slightly higher proportions of non-US Ph.D. students completed the degree and in less time than their U.S. counterparts. I have used the NRC assessment of research doctoral programs to see if there are differences in the quality of programs with higher proportions of international students within a field and find that the better programs all graduate about the same percentage of international Ph.D.s. For less distinguished programs, the proportion non-U.S. ranges from 0 to 100% --essentially random. I find it very unlikely that graduate programs are denying places to U.S. minorities in favor of international students.

To conclude, I feel quite strongly that the U.S. needs more people to do science and engineering at most levels. The news about a bad academic job market for Ph.D.s shouldn’t disguise the overall need for scientific literacy and the ability to apply analytic reasoning to many problems in the workplace. We are not yet good at bringing underrepresented minorities int