A U.S. National Science Foundation program dedicated to increasing the number of science and engineering Ph.D.s earned by members of underrepresented minority groups is now bearing fruit, according to a news note in the 24 April 2009 issue of Science magazine.
At 66 of the 79 U.S. universities participating in the Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program, the annual number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) doctoral degrees awarded to minority students increased by 33.9% from 2001 to 2008. The gains were even more remarkable among the natural sciences and engineering fields, where Ph.D.’s for minorities increased by 50%.