Underrepresented minority students receive lower grades and have higher rates of attrition across STEM disciplines: A sign of inequity?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Underrepresented minority (URM) students are subjected to historically rooted inequities when pursuing an education, especially in STEM disciplines with little diversity. In order to make STEM education equitable and inclusive, evidence for how students from different racial/ethnic demographics are faring is necessary. We use 10 years of institutional data at a large public US-based university to investigate trends in the majors that Asian, URM, and White students declare, drop, and complete. We find that URM students drop most majors at higher rates compared to other students, particularly in physics and economics. We find alarming GPA trends in that URM students consistently earn lower grades than their Asian and White peers. In some STEM disciplines, the URM students who earn a degree are earning the same grades as the Asian and White students who dropped the major. These troubling trends may signify lack of sufficient support, mentoring, and guidance for the URM students who are already severely disadvantaged particularly at a primarily White institution. These findings call for greater resources and effort for making learning environments equitable and inclusive so that many URM students who come to college with severe disadvantages are appropriately supported and can excel similar to other students.