The “leaky pipeline” is the oft-used metaphor to characterize the loss of STEM students in the progression from high school through college and into the labor force. This view of STEM education—which posits a unidirectional flow out of STEM fields—is both pervasive and influential in K-12, higher education, and workforce development policy. But there has been limited empirical support for this claim that “leaving STEM” is unidirectional and reduces the size of the STEM cohort. This study analyzes two cohorts in nationally representative, longitudinal surveys of four-year college students to examine freshman-to-bachelor’s degree pathways. We find that although a third of STEM-intending freshmen leave STEM fields and graduate in non-STEM majors, the size of the STEM graduating class is larger than the freshmen STEM class in the two cohorts of bachelor’s degree graduates. STEM graduates in both cohorts are comprised of large shares of students who did not initially declare a STEM major: just under 20% of graduates first began as non-STEM majors and were “late entrants” in STEM. Thus, rather than a leaky pipeline, STEM disciplines appear to be a two-way street, with many students attracted into STEM fields during college. The findings suggest that the dominant focus on STEM retention should be broadened to consider STEM “attraction” during college, since a large share of STEM graduates begin college as non-STEM and undeclared majors.
Salzman et al. (Fri,) studied this question.