NSF: Role of HBCUs as Baccalaureate-Origin Institutions of Black S&E Doctorate Recipients

by Joan Burrelli and Alan Rapoport[1]
NSF 08-319 August 2008

In a February 2008 article in the Washington Post, the presidents of four Maryland historically black institutions raised the issue of the role and relevance of historically black institutions in enhancing educational opportunities for African Americans (Avery et al 2008). This InfoBrief partially addresses this issue by examining the role of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) as baccalaureate-origin institutions of black science and engineering (S&E)[2] doctorate recipients. It examines trends primarily during the past two decades and compares HBCUs to non-HBCU institutions, to different Carnegie types of institutions,[3] and to a select group of baccalaureate colleges—the Oberlin 50 (minus Hampton University which is an HBCU).[4] The InfoBrief also examines differences between public and private institutions. The analysis focuses on two types of output variables: the absolute number of doctorates and the institutional yield—the number of S&E doctorates in a given year per thousand bachelor's degrees awarded in all fields 9 years (the median time from bachelor's-to-doctorate receipt for S&E doctorates) prior to that year.
In the late 1970s over 40% of black S&E doctorate recipients received their baccalaureate degrees from HBCUs.[5] This percentage fell to 25% in the first part of the 1990s before increasing to about 33% in 2006. During the same period (1977–2006), the share of blacks receiving bachelor's degrees from HBCUs fell from 36% to 21% (figure 1).

Baccalaureate-Origin Institutions of Black S&E Doctorate Recipients
Black S&E doctorate recipients from U.S. universities complete their undergraduate education at a wide variety of types of institutions in the United States. A small proportion of blacks earning S&E doctorates from U.S. universities had undergraduate degrees from foreign institutions, 8% in 2006 (table 1). An additional 2% did not provide information about their baccalaureate institutions in 2006. Of those with known U.S. baccalaureate institutions, in 2006 a third earned their bachelor's degrees from an HBCU institution and the remainder earned their bachelor's degrees from non-HBCU institutions. The percentage of S&E doctorate recipients earning their bachelor's degrees from HBCUs ranged between 24% and 33% from 1986 to 2006. Among those earning their baccalaureate degrees at known U.S. institutions in 2006 slightly less than one-third (31%) earned their bachelor's degrees from a non-HBCU research university. The remainder earned their bachelor's degrees from non-HBCU other doctorate-granting institutions (15%), master's-granting institutions (12%), or baccalaureate colleges (8%). The baccalaureate origin of 4% was an Oberlin 49 institution.

Baccalaureate-Origin Institutions of Black S&E Doctorate Recipients Normalized for Bachelor's Degrees Awarded
Although only one-quarter to one-third of black S&E doctorate recipients received their bachelor's degrees from HBCUs from 1986 to 2006, when normalized by the number of bachelor's degrees awarded, HBCUs as a group yielded about as many future S&E doctorates per thousand bachelor's awarded as non-HBCU institutions during this period. The trends for both groups were similar (figure 2).

[To read the entire brief, go to: http://nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08319/#avery2008 ]