Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Minorities struggle in math, science
By Hilary Weissman
Washington Square News (NYU)
04/10/2006

(U-WIRE) NEW YORK — Black and Hispanic students face difficulties attaining bachelor's degrees in mathematics and science because of insufficient academic preparation and financial hardship, according to an American Council on Education study released last week.

The study, released April 3, tracked 12,000 undergraduates who entered colleges across the country in Fall 1995 to find the causes of and possible solutions to the disparity.

While 94.8 percent of Asian-American students and 86.7 percent of white students from the 1995 class majoring in science, technology, engineering or mathematics attained bachelor's degrees by Spring 2001, only 62.5 percent of black and Hispanic students with the same majors attained those degrees.

Eugene Anderson, co-author of the study, said universities, parents and teachers need to pay more attention to what is happening to minority students in these fields.

"Everyone has been talking about the importance of math and science professionals in the future," Anderson said, adding that people look at the differences between our country's statistics and those of other countries.

Anderson said the council found that minority students fall behind in science and mathematics majors because of both academic and financial reasons, and students who don't receive enough financial aid often do not attend universities as consistently as full-time students. This instability and inconsistency often affects students' motivation and academic performance, he said.

"Students need to be encouraged to maintain status and persist," Anderson said. "If students are given more aid and can lessen their work commitments, they can stay at school full time and progress through the program."

The study's findings could mean positive changes for minority students, said Allen McFarlane, the student diversity programs and services vice president at New York University's Office of African American, Latino, and Asian American Student Services, or OASIS.

"Anything that stimulates awareness and thought is important to improving and tweaking the education system for the future," McFarlane said. "If we continue to find ways to provide financial resources nationally ... in support of students from lower socioeconomic, culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds, it appears that STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] graduates would be positively impacted."

The study also reported that students who did not experience a rigorous academic curriculum in high school have difficulty completing science and mathematics degrees.

Anderson said students who do not have higher-level courses or Advanced Placement courses available to them in high school lack the academic persistence needed to complete their degrees.

"Kids coming out of suburban high schools, where they offer a lot of AP courses, are coming out better prepared to succeed in college," he said. "Not having the appropriate courses at the high school level puts the students behind. It's a real hidden reality of public education that not all schools offer the same courses."

CAS junior Amanda Sales said she attributes her success at NYU to the rigorous and competitive nature of her high school.

"We were encouraged to take a lot of AP and honors courses," she said. "My teachers were always available after school."

Sales said AP classes were considered academic necessities at her high school.

"Anyone who didn't [take AP's] would have been thought of as intellectually inferior," she said. "I can't imagine the competition without AP classes."

University of Virginia junior Whitney Hewlett, a black student who was raised in an affluent suburban community, said many black students in her introductory courses had trouble keeping up.

"I remember a lot of black kids dropping out of pre-med," she said. "Some people think Chemistry 101 is just meant to weed out the African-American kids who can't take the environment."

Anderson also placed significance on the competitive science and mathematics departments, citing that math and science are the second and third most popular majors in the country following business.

"It's not about interest," he said. "It's about students being in the right situation to earn that degree, and a lot of that has to do with college preparation and attendance."

Anderson said the council hopes that people on campuses and on Capitol Hill will realize what is happening. The Bush administration is currently in the process of proposing a $28 million spending increase for the Advanced Placement program to bring AP courses into low-income schools that do not currently offer them.

"We hope they will understand that right now the White House has proposed a grant program to encourage more students to study these fields persistently and consistently," he said.

[ Back to Student Voices ]