The National Science Foundation came to Hispanic-serving institutions for advice Sunday on the best way to tackle the dearth of Latinos in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The advice from college administrators gathered for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities’ Capitol Forum came back loud and clear: Pay Hispanic students to do research. Or you’ll never get them – and keep them – in STEM fields.
“Our students are working-class students. They cannot just come to school to do the research. They need to get paid,” said Dr. Mohsen Beheshti, chair of the computer science department at California State University, Dominguez Hills, one of the Hispanic-serving institutions represented at the HACU Capitol Forum this week.
“Sometimes they need to support their parents. Provide them some stipend so they can take time from working – otherwise they will not get in.”
Often, they don’t. Hispanics, who are the largest minority in the country at 14 percent and growing, earned just 7.5 percent of bachelor’s degrees in engineering in 2005, according to a recent report from the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering. They earned just 7.5 percent of the bachelor’s in biological sciences that year; 6.8 percent in computer sciences; 6.5 percent in physics; and 5.8 percent in mathematics.
