Physics Degrees Awarded, US + Territories

 

Raw Data: physics_ipeds_2015-23

 

The data above was collected from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Database.

 

I have tabulated first and second degrees for every degree-granting institution reporting to the US Department of Education, disaggregated by both gender and ethnicity as the DOE defines it in their database.

 

Physics departments are continually under threat:

·         https://www.aps.org/apsnews/2024/08/universities-shuttering-departments

·         https://www.aps.org/archives/publications/apsnews/201110/physicsprograms.cfm

 

One thing the EP3 Toolkit for Departments Under Threat suggests is to gather high-quality data, and present it to normalize departmental achievement with near-peer organizations, be they regional or through Carnegie classification. 

 

It is my hope that these data will help departments under threat in an important way. These are just data, however, but they are data on completions of degrees. I can hardly imagine a stronger metric for student success than helping a student earn a degree in physics, with all the life-changing and family-changing effects that entails.

 

These data have been vetted in a couple of ways by me, but this data set is the result of my work as a single overworked physicist whose main responsibility is a full-load of classes. 

 

Please send errors or suggestions to Galen.Pickett@csulb.edu.

 

 

A key result: when I look at the principle components of the department-weighted cross correlation of disaggregated student ethnicity and gender and if the department is at a Ph.D. granting institution (some Ph.D. granting institutions do not offer doctoral degrees in physics), it is clear that the Black experience in US undergraduate physics is distinct.

 

 

The Primary factor show that a department grows (or shrinks) from the average graduating class by adding equal amounts of Asian, Latino, or White students (heavy blue curve) – accounting for more than half the total variation among the 757 department that had at least one undergraduate degree produced between 2021-23).

 

The notable exception being that Black students account for half the growth potential that other students do. It appears that US Undergraduate physics is colorblind, except when it comes to Black students.

 

The Secondary factor represents 14% of department-to-department variation. Here is a signal in which Black students (at the expense of Asian, Latino, and White) are added or subtracted. 

 

And finally the Tertiary factor (10% of variation) shows a distinct mechanism by which a non-Ph.D. granting department enhances DEI with a slight preference for Asian and Black students over Latinos, with the notable absence of Black women.