A Matter of Degrees

Preliminary results from a 7-year project to improve Ph.D. completion rates at U.S. and Canadian universities indicate that whites, men, and international students are more likely to complete their degrees than women, other ethnic groups, and domestic students. That's what experts have long suspected. But there are also some surprising differences, according to a report this month from the Council of Graduate Schools. African-Americans have the greatest variance in completion rates by discipline, for example, although the numbers are too small to be statistically significant. Although 60% complete life sciences degrees in a 10-year period (the same as for whites), only 37% do so in math and the physical sciences. The project, funded by Pfizer Inc. and the Ford Foundation, supports additional data analysis as well as a range of interventions by 29 institutions--from additional mentoring to increased research opportunities--aimed at helping more students complete their degrees.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol321/issue5895/s-scope.dtl