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 ]

Data on Minority Doctorates Suppressed

Inside Higher Education
April 24, 2008
Scott Jaschik

If you are conducting a faculty search, or trying to diversify the professoriate, or want to see whether various programs to do so have succeeded, the Survey of Earned Doctorates has always been a key source of information. They survey will tell you, for example, how many Latinos earned doctorates in chemistry (23 for the last year available), or how many black people earned doctorates in political science (34). If you watch the trends from year to year, and also pay attention to the total number of doctorates awarded (1,170 in chemistry to U.S. citizens, and 506 in political science), you have an instant sense of the changing or stagnant demographics of your pool.
Or at least you used to.
Citing privacy concerns, the National Science Foundation — which sponsors the survey — has ordered that data on subgroups beneath a certain size be blocked from release. So subgroups for which the numbers are small will no longer be available. So while we know that in 2005, six black people earned doctorates in earth, atmospheric and marine sciences, the NSF won’t reveal how many earned the degrees in 2006 (covered by the most recent report). Information about the number of Latinos earning degrees in some engineering fields is gone, as are data about a number of categories for black Ph.D.’s. For Native Americans, where the base is smaller, the impact of the new policy is especially dramatic. The report was stripped of information on how many doctorates were awarded to all but 6 of the 35 subfields for which data were collected.
Because most people who focus on the study are drawn to the overall trends, where data about various minority groups is preserved because of the larger sample sizes, the issue of the missing information is only now starting to receive attention. But advocates for increased diversity in graduate education and the professoriate are frustrated by the changes. They note that educational experts of many political perspectives agree that it’s hard to know how to tackle educational challenges without information about the performance of subgroups — that’s even one of the principles underpinning President Bush’s favorite education law, No Child Left Behind. So removing this information, advocates say, makes no sense. They add that debates about public policy would be informed by seeing these numbers in detail — and that the fact that the numbers are small is part of why they are important to consider.
“This hides information. It removes information,” said Andreen Neukranz-Butler, human rights compliance officer for the University of Idaho and a member of the board of the American Association for Affirmative Action. If a subgroup goes from two to four doctorates a year (or falls similarly), that’s important information, she said, and those working on these issues need to know it. [To read the entire story, go to: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/24/data ]