For decades, universities, colleges, researchers, policymakers, foundations, and think tanks have been trying to solve the issue of getting more students to persist to graduation. Research shows that the problem of increasing the number of students who graduate in four years with a college degree still exists. Black female students continue to…

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationships between the positive and negative factors that impact undergraduate female engineering students' academic success in their programs. While females participate and persist in higher education at higher rates than their male counterparts, engineering is one field of study where gender…

This qualitative single descriptive case study addressed the perspectives of how minority women perceived higher education institutions support or lack of support in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. The problem was that there is a disproportionately small number of minority women being prepared to fill STEM jobs.…

Education has until recently promoted social mobility, broad economic growth, and democracy. However, modern universities direct policy and resources toward criteria that exacerbate income inequality and reduce social mobility. Online education can make education more socially, geographically, temporally, and financially accessible, impacting the…

This chapter addresses critical issues related to the transfer success of women and underrepresented minorities (URMs) in STEM disciplines and will highlight implications for fostering a successful transfer experience for these populations. For the purposes of this chapter, URMs is defined by the National Science Foundation to include African…

In the past decades, most of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have been affected by armed conflicts. By means of a time-series cross-sectional (TSCS) database, we attempt to measure the impact of war on a sample of 43 countries in Africa from 1950 to 2010. These conflicts, and especially civil wars, are shown to have a strong negative effect on…

The U.S. federal government identifies many science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) majors as "areas of national need" that are "crucial to national innovation, competitiveness, and well-being and in which not enough students complete degrees." Underrepresentation of women in STEM in the United States has economic…

During the 2014 White House Science Fair, President Barack Obama used a sports metaphor to explain why we must address the shortage of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), particularly in the engineering and computing fields: "Half our team, we're not even putting on the field. We've got to change those…

During the 2014 White House Science Fair, President Barack Obama used a sports metaphor to explain why we must address the shortage of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), particularly in the engineering and computing fields: "Half our team, we're not even putting on the field. We've got to change those…

While powerful gender inequalities remain in American society, women have made substantial gains and now largely surpass men in one crucial arena: education. Women now outperform men academically at all levels of school, and are more likely to obtain college degrees and enroll in graduate school. What accounts for this enormous reversal in the…

ACT has been a leader in measuring college and career readiness trends for decades. Each August, ACT releases "The Condition of College & Career Readiness" (www.act.org/newsroom/data/2013), our annual report on the progress of the ACT-tested graduating class relative to college readiness. Nationally, 54.3% of the 2013 graduating…

This paper summarizes the findings of a five-year study aimed at improving the retention rates of female students pursuing careers in engineering. The study analyzed a series of programs implemented at the University of Toledo. The programs involve hands-on design projects, research experiences, communication tools geared towards females,…

Increasingly, companies and corporations are seeking to diversify areas of their workforce that are predominantly male. Many of the positions in these areas are highly technical. However, despite abundant opportunities, women are not preparing themselves for technology-related careers. To develop a first step toward addressing this problem, a…

This research examines the impact of gender on the association between sport participation and students' educational opportunities and outcomes by comparing African American male and female eighth graders, including student background and school demographic and organization characteristics. Unlike previous studies it also investigates the link…

This statistical report assembles a series of indicators that examine the extent to which males and females have access to the same educational opportunities, avail themselves equally of these opportunities, perform at similar levels throughout schooling, succeed at similar rates, and reap the same benefits from their educational experiences. This…