Metropolitan State leads with STEM degree graduates

Metropolitan State University has the highest percent of underrepresented students of color graduating with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degrees in Minnesota.

Metropolitan State is a partner with the University of Minnesota (U of M) in the development of a National Science Foundation grant proposal to the Louis Stokes Alliance Minority Participation (LSAMP) program for STEM disciplines.

The proposed North Star STEM Alliance will broaden the participation of underrepresented minorities in Minnesota in STEM baccalaureate education.

The 18 Alliance partners include public and private colleges and universities, community colleges, the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Minnesota High Tech Association.

According to the data submitted by the U of M in the LSAMP grant proposal, Metropolitan State had the highest proportion of LSAMP eligible students of color (specifically African-American, American Indian and Latino students) graduating with a baccalaureate STEM degree in 2005.

Moreover, in absolute numbers of these underrepresented students of color receiving a baccalaureate STEM degree, Metropolitan State was second in Minnesota only to the U of M, Twin Cities, which has over 50,000 students enrolled in its classes.

The Metropolitan State STEM degree accomplishment is especially significant since 1999 was the first year the university had any students graduating with a baccalaureate in biology. Fall 2001 was the first term a student graduated with a B.S. in applied mathematics.

In percentage and absolute numbers, Metropolitan State graduated more underrepresented STEM students of color than all the other Minnesota universities, including the much larger institutions of Mankato State, St. Cloud State and the U of M, Duluth—all of which have schools of engineering, more science degree programs and more students than Metropolitan State.

Why have students of color at Metropolitan State done comparatively so well in STEM disciplines in such a short time?

The positive side of the story is that all science and math majors at Metropolitan State have ready access to tenure-track faculty in the Information and Computer Sciences, Mathematics and Natural Sciences departments. STEM discipline resident faculty are accessible advisors to math and science majors, and are readily available in the classrooms and labs at Metropolitan State (no teaching assistants here).

The other side of the story is that Minnesota K–12 schools have not been doing a good enough job in advising students of color to take the courses that serve as a foundation for the STEM disciplines and have not been doing a good enough job of preparing them for success if they do choose to take more advanced courses in mathematics and the sciences.

Moreover, Minnesota colleges and universities generally have not done a good enough job of helping students who start a STEM major successfully complete their academic journey to a science or math degree.

Thus, in 2004–2005, only 136 students of color graduated with a STEM degree from one of the 11 LSAMP partner universities, and over half of these STEM graduates came from one institution, the U of M, Twin Cities.

In other words, Metropolitan State’s relative success is due in large part to the lack of strong competition.

This is the point of the proposed North Star STEM Alliance. All the schools in Minnesota from K–12 to public and private higher education, including Metropolitan State, have to do a better job. It is important that Metropolitan State and STEM graduates from this university build on the successes that they have achieved so far and do even better in the future.

Increasing the number of students of color graduating with a STEM degree in Minnesota will not only benefit these students and their communities but will benefit the entire metropolitan community.

Every forecast of future economic growth for the state points to the need of increasing STEM graduates to maintain a healthy economy and to maintain the broad tax base that is generated by high paying jobs in the STEM sector.

Since students of color are the overwhelming majority of the students in the Minneapolis and St. Paul school systems, it is absolutely essential to the economic and political health of the Twin Cities metropolitan economy that a large number of these students find high-paying STEM employment in the future.