Latest news with #STEMdegrees
Associated Press
3 days ago
- Science
- Associated Press
California invested millions pushing these careers for women. The results are disappointing
Ten years ago, it seemed everyone was talking about women in science. As the economy improved in the years after the Great Recession, women were slower to return to the workforce, causing alarm, especially in vital fields like computing. State and federal leaders turned their attention to women in science, technology, engineering and math, known by the acronym STEM. Over the next few years, they poured millions of dollars into increasing the number of women pursuing STEM degrees. But the rate of women who attain those degrees has hardly improved, according to an analysis of colleges' data by the Public Policy Institute of California on behalf of CalMatters. 'The unfortunate news is that the numbers haven't changed much at all,' said Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the institute who conducted the analysis of California's four-year colleges using data from the 2009-10 school year and comparing it to the most recent numbers, from 2022-23. The share of women who received a bachelor's degree increased from roughly 19% to about 25% in engineering and from nearly 16% to about 23% in computer science. In math and statistics, the percentage of women who graduate with a degree has gone down in the last five years. 'It's not nothing, but at this pace it would take a very long time to reach parity,' Johnson said. Girls are also underrepresented in certain high school classes, such as AP computer science, and while women make up about 42% of California's workforce, they comprise just a quarter of those working in STEM careers, according to a study by Mount Saint Mary's University. Fewer women were working in math careers in 2023 than in the five or 10 years before that, the study found. 'It's a cultural phenomenon, not a biological phenomenon,' said Mayya Tokman, a professor of applied mathematics at UC Merced. She said underrepresentation is a result of perceptions about women, the quality of their education, and a lack of role models in a given field. Science and technology spurs innovation and economic growth while promoting national security, and these jobs are often lucrative and stable. Gender parity is critical, especially as U.S. science and technology industries struggle to find qualified workers, said Sue Rosser, provost emerita at San Francisco State and a longtime advocate for women in science. 'We need more people in STEM. More people means immigrants, women, people of color as well as white men. There's no point in excluding anyone.' She said that recent cuts by the Trump administration to California's research and education programs will stymie progress in science, technology and engineering — and hurt countless careers, including the women who aspire to join these fields. Over the last eight months, the federal government has made extensive cuts to scientific research at California's universities, affecting work on dementia, vaccines, women's issues and on health problems affecting the LGBTQ+ community. The administration also ended programs that support undergraduate students in science. In June a federal judge ruled that the administration needs to restore some of those grants, but a Supreme Court decision could reverse that ruling. More recently, the administration halted hundreds of grants to UCLA — representing hundreds of millions in research funding — in response to a U.S. Justice Department investigation into allegations of antisemitism. Now the Trump administration is asking for a $1 billion settlement in return for the grants. A California district judge ruled on Tuesday that at least some of those grants need to be restored. 'The cultural conversation has changed' In the past five years, attention has shifted away from women in science. Nonprofit leaders and researchers across the state say that many lawmakers and philanthropists turned away from women in STEM during the COVID-19 pandemic and focused more on racial justice following the police killing of George Floyd. Since 1995, women have been outpacing men in college, and women are now much more likely to attain a bachelor's degree. The unemployment rate for men is higher, too, and men without college degrees are opting out of the labor force at unprecedented rates. On July 30 Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order saying the state needs to do more to address the 'growing crisis of connection and opportunity for men and boys.' It's not a 'zero-sum' game, he wrote: the state can, and should, support everyone. But some state investments for women's education are lagging. In 2018, the Legislature agreed to put $10 million each year into a new initiative, the California Education Learning Laboratory, to 'close equity and achievement gaps,' including the underrepresentation of girls and women in science and technology. But two years later, the state imposed large-scale cuts to the initiative due to the pandemic. As the state faced more fiscal challenges in 2024, lawmakers cut its budget to about half its former size. This year, Newsom proposed cutting the Education Learning Laboratory altogether. After negotiations with the Legislature, Newsom agreed to fund the initiative through next year, at which point it's set to close unless new funding is secured. 'While I think women are faring better in college generally, I would be skeptical that we can say 'mission accomplished' in terms of achieving parity for women in STEM undergraduate degrees,' said Lark Park, the director of the Education Learning Laboratory, which uses public money to provide grants to schools and nonprofits. 'I think we've just gotten distracted and the cultural conversation has changed.' Private and corporate foundations fund numerous nonprofit organizations that support girls and women in STEM, but grant recipients say some money has moved toward other, more popular topics or less controversial ones. 'Funders focus on trends and they're very trendy in how they give,' said Dawn Brown, president of the EmpowHer Institute, which offers education programs to girls and women across Los Angeles County. One of her programs provides a free, five-week summer camp to girls, including a trip to Catalina Island, where they learn about environmental science and climate change. Since Trump took office, some corporate funders have pulled back support for the organization's programs, which may be perceived as supporting 'DEI,' she said. 'The words 'women,' 'girls,' 'climate change' — those are banned words.' Supporting women in math When Chloe Lynn, a rising junior at UC Berkeley and a double major in applied math and management science, started taking higher-level courses, she noticed a trend in her math classes: fewer women. 'I'll be one of three girls in a 30, 40-person class,' she said during an interview at the university's division of equity and inclusion. UC Berkeley has a center dedicated to promoting diversity in STEM, known as Cal NERDS, which features cozy study spots, a high-tech makerspace and various multi-purpose meeting rooms. The center receives much of its funding from the state but has a few grants from the federal government, some of which are currently on hold. On a Thursday last month, Lynn was one of 10 students who came to present their summer research in one of the multi-purpose rooms. More than half of the presenters were women or non-binary, and the rest were part of other underrepresented groups in STEM, including Hispanic, Black and LGBTQ+ students. She stood in front of a large poster, waiting for people to stop by and ask about her work. 'Say you're at an auction, and say there's n bidders and k identical items,' she said as another student approached. Over the next two hours, fellow mathematicians, classmates, friends and family stopped by, listening as she explained her formula for allocating resources in an optimal way. Some understood her work and asked questions about her variables, formulas or 3-D models. The rest nodded in admiration. By the end of the event, many students had abandoned their own posters in order to learn about their friends' research. In her free time, as the vice president of UC Berkeley's undergraduate math association, Lynn has been trying to build this kind of community among other female math majors by organizing events where students can meet each other. Her end goal is graduate school, either in applied math or industrial engineering. Women are also underrepresented in those graduate programs. 'Creating an inclusive and uplifting community is so important for anyone that's underrepresented,' she said after finishing her presentation. How STEM helps people The lack of women in STEM has nothing to do with their abilities. In fact, women who major in STEM at California State University campuses are more likely than men to graduate, according to data from the college system, and in biology, women are overrepresented. Over 64% of biology bachelor's degrees awarded in California during the 2022-23 school year went to women, according to the analysis from the Public Policy Institute of California. Brown said some female alumni of EmpowHer have said that college advisers push biology over other science, engineering or math courses, claiming that it's 'easier.' Better advising could create more parity, she said. Rosser, who trained as a zoologist before becoming a college administrator, said women's shift toward biology was a slow process, beginning in the 1970s. 'Women are particularly attracted to STEM when they can see its usefulness, particularly to help people,' she said. Biology is often 'an entryway to the health care professions,' she added, many of which are predominately female. She recommends that professors promote the application of their research as a way to increase the percentage of women in these fields. In her studies at UC Berkeley, Lynn said she's struggled with the relevance of her research. 'There's a lot going on in the world right now and I feel called to help,' she said. 'Even though I did theory research this summer, I've been thinking about ways to apply this theory to real-world applications I care about.' In particular, she wants her research to help her community in the Bay Area, where she grew up. 'Say you're an architect and you're in charge of reinforcing San Francisco's concrete structures in the event of an earthquake,' she said. 'You want to minimize cost in San Francisco, and that's going to help you choose which building you're going to reinforce.' It's just another resource allocation problem, she said, so it could be solved with a similar formula. 'It does hit close to home,' she said. In fact, the UC Berkeley campus lies on a fault line. ___ This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Forbes
28-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Even More Bad News For Younger Workers: More Unemployment, Less Money
unemployment line, people out of work looking for a job A few days ago, I wrote about 10 college degrees with high unemployment for the recently graduated (ages 22 to 27). The data, presented by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, was from 2023 when the unemployment rate was 3.8% and some of the highest rates of unemployment were among people with STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) degrees. Some of the examples that had upwards of double the overall unemployment rate were physics (7.8%), computer engineering (7.5%), computer science (6.1%), chemistry (6.1%), and information systems and management (5.6%). As they grow up, young adults repeatedly hear that these 'safe' studies lead to plentiful, good-paying employment. What they don't hear — although likely have a growing sense of given common comments on social media — is the truth of their being fed with a load of bunk. There's more truth in additional New York Fed data about how 22-to-27-year-olds are faring. Start with the distribution of annual wages for recent college graduates. This data runs from 1990 through 2024 and is in the form of constant dollars to allow for a direct comparison that accounts for inflation. The graph below shows the data. The grey shaded area shows the 25th to 75th percentile around the bachelor's degree median. Changes in incomes of people 22 to 27 In 1990, those with a bachelor's degree had a median wage of $56,642. The 25th percentile made $43,216 and the 75th percentile wage was $72,027. The high school diploma only median wage was $40,815. Jump to 2024. The bachelor's degree median wage was $60,000, with a 25th percentile of $43,000 and a 75th percentile of $80,000. The high school diploma wage was $40,000. Over the 34 year span, only the bachelor's degree group saw income growth. At the 75th percentile, it was 11%. At the median, it was 5.9%. The 25th percentile showed a roughly 0.5% drop. For high school only, the difference was -5.6%. The college-educated age range among the three points — 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile — saw at most an 11% increase over the 34 years. However, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator shows that it took $2.36 at the end of 2024 to match the buying power of $1 at the end of 1990. That's 136% inflation, or general increase in the costs of living, compared to the 11% for the top paid in the sample. Can't afford a home or health insurance? It's a marvel people from 22 to 27 can afford a coffee or piece of avocado toast. Now for unemployment, with the graph below, also from the New York Fed. Unemployment rates over time In March 2025, the latest data on the chart, the overall unemployment rate was 4.0%. For all college graduates, it was 2.7%. Recent college graduates, 5.8%. And for all young workers, 6.9%. Over time, the all-college graduates group had the lowest unemployment rate. Then there were some changes starting just before the pandemic. All college graduates started getting a higher unemployment rate than all workers. All young workers still had the highest unemployment rates. Again, the promise of a future for dedication to, and later high expense of, a college education starts sounding like, if not an empty promise, one that is quickly leaking. No wonder, younger adults aren't reaching the same milestones as older generations.
