Persistence and Attrition in STEM Education and Training

Postsecondary Enrollment in STEM

The High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) follows a nationally representative sample of students who were ninth graders in fall 2009 from high school into postsecondary education and the workforce (NCES 2024a). Part of the HSLS:09 data includes the Postsecondary Education Administrative Records Collection that was conducted in 2021, approximately 8 years after high school graduation for most of the cohort. Together, these data provide information on whether fall 2009 ninth graders enrolled in STEM postsecondary education completed a STEM degree by June 2021. The data also provide information about enrollment characteristics and STEM degree completion for those students.

Transition to Employment for Research Doctorate Recipients

In the current global economy, knowledge is an increasingly valuable national asset. When studying abroad, international students broaden their career prospects, and many of them may weigh job opportunities in different countries. This section focuses on research doctorate recipients who studied at U.S. institutions of higher education and had definite employment commitments or postdoctoral study or training positions in the United States at the time of graduation.^{​Research doctorate recipients complete the Survey of Earned Doctorates as they approach graduation toward the end of their program. This statistic provides data on those who had a definite employment commitment at the time they took the survey. Respondents who indicated that they did not have a definite commitment at that time could have ended up having a definite commitment by the time they graduated. In 2023, 26% of doctorate recipients who responded to this question had no definite commitment for employment or postdoctoral training at the time they completed the survey (NCSES SED 2023: Table 2-1).}

In 2023, of the students awarded S&E doctoral degrees, 27,010 recipients were U.S. citizens and permanent residents and 16,807 were temporary visa holders (Table TAL-15) (NCSES 2024b: Table 6-2, Table 6-3). The majority of S&E doctorate recipients in both groups reported having definite postgraduation commitments at the time they responded to the survey, although this proportion was slightly higher among temporary visa holders (72%) than among U.S. citizens and permanent residents (69%). In both groups, most of the employment commitments were in the United States, but this proportion was higher for U.S. citizens and permanent residents (97%) than for temporary visa holders (85%) (Table TAL-15). Among temporary visa holders reporting definite employment commitments, the proportion with a commitment in the United States were highest for those in biological and biomedical sciences (90%), engineering (89%), multidisciplinary sciences (89%), and computer and information sciences (88%); these proportions were lowest for those in health sciences (73%) and social sciences (64%) (Figure TAL-37).

Postdoctoral study or training is a temporary position in which doctorate recipients can gain additional education and training in research, usually awarded in academia, industry, government, or a nonprofit organization.^{​Doctorate recipients with definite postgraduation commitments in national laboratories such as, for example, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Department of Defense, Federal Funded Research, and Development Centers, etc. may have reported their position under any of the categories in Table TAL-15, depending on the type of position they accepted (postdoctoral study or employment) and on whether the center or institute is affiliated with a university, the government, or a nonprofit.} In 2023, among S&E doctorate recipients who reported postgraduation employment in the United States, about 42% reported having secured a postdoctoral training position, regardless of citizenship status. However, larger proportions of temporary visa holders than U.S. citizens reported postdoctoral positions in several S&E fields, particularly health sciences (53% vs. 26%), agricultural sciences and natural resources (65% vs. 41%), and geosciences, atmospheric sciences, and ocean sciences (74% vs. 60%) (Figure TAL-38; Table TAL-15).

Among doctorate recipients with definite postgraduation employment commitments in the United States, a larger proportion of U.S. citizens and permanent residents than temporary visa holders reported academic appointments that were not postdoctoral study (17% vs. 9%), whereas a larger proportion of temporary visa holders (45%) reported an industry position compared with their U.S. citizen and permanent resident counterparts (29%). This pattern can be observed in most fields of study (Figure TAL-38; Table TAL-15).