Minority students who major in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics—the “STEM” disciplines—go on to earn more money than their peers who major in other fields, but disparities in pay emerged among STEM graduates of different racial groups, according to a new study published in the journal Research in Higher Education.
Black STEM majors earned less than Asian and Latino STEM majors, researchers reported in “The Earnings Benefits of Majoring in STEM Fields Among High Achieving Minority Students.” The study describes the analysis of a sample of 1,067 minority students who applied for the Gates Millennium Scholarship program, which provides scholarships to academically talented minority students from low-income backgrounds.
The study’s sample included both recipients and nonrecipients who entered college in the 2000-1 academic year. The students also participated in two follow-up surveys, the last of which was in 2006. About 70 percent of those studied were women, and slightly more than one-third had a parent who graduated from college.
The study found that minority STEM majors as a whole earned more than 25 percent more than their peers who studied the humanities or education. What was more startling, however, were the disparities that emerged between students from different minority groups even though they majored in STEM fields.
Black STEM majors earned an average of $39,365 per year. Asian and Pacific Islander STEM majors made $47,530, and Latino STEM majors earned $56,875.
“It’s really discouraging when you think that you’re finally getting high achieving students of color into the pipeline,” said Tatiana Melguizo, an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California, who wrote the paper with Gregory C. Wolniak, a senior research scientist at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
If America is “failing to provide opportunities to continue into STEM fields,” she said, “that’s a big loss for society, the institutions, and the individual.”
It appeared that black STEM graduates tended to work at jobs outside STEM fields, including education, more often than their peers, said Ms. Melguizo, based on an analysis of the relatedness of students’ jobs relative to their college majors. But it was not clear whether black STEM graduates sought STEM jobs and were not hired for them, or they chose to work in other fields that did not pay as much.
Perhaps, she theorized, Latinos have access to larger networks of STEM scholars or employers are looking specifically to hire Latinos, or black STEM majors encounter discrimination. The findings suggest the need for follow-up qualitative research, such as interviewing the students to learn more about their decision making, she said.
