Baccalaureate Origins of Underrepresented Minority Research Doctorate Recipients

Figure 1 shows the baccalaureate origins of doctorate recipients from 2010–20 by type of institution, and it highlights several key differences by citizenship status, race, and ethnicity. For this analysis, race and ethnicity is limited to U.S. citizens and permanent residents; citizenship reflects status at time of doctorate award. Although just over half of all U.S. citizens and permanent residents earned a bachelor’s degree from a public college or university in the United States, a substantially greater percentage of AIAN doctorate recipients (70.6%) and Hispanic or Latino doctorate recipients (60.2%) earned a bachelor’s degree from public U.S. institutions. White doctorate recipients and those reporting more than one race disproportionately earned a bachelor’s degree from private U.S. institutions (39.9% and 40.0%, respectively). Almost a third (32.4%) of Asian doctorate recipients and the vast majority (87.6%) of doctorate recipients with temporary visas earned a bachelor’s degree from non-U.S. institutions.

In addition to differences in institutional control (public or private) of baccalaureate-origin schools, there are differences by race and ethnicity in terms of the Carnegie Classification of these schools. AIAN, Black, and Hispanic doctorate recipients disproportionately earned a bachelor’s degree from public master’s institutions (15.1%, 14.3%, and 12.3%, respectively, versus 9.4% for all U.S. citizens and permanent residents). White doctorate recipients had the highest proportion of bachelor’s degrees from private baccalaureate colleges (13.6%) and were the only group above the 11.9% average for all U.S. citizens and permanent residents to earn a degree from a private baccalaureate college.

Of all doctorate recipients who earned their undergraduate degrees in the United States, about half (49.0%) of White doctorate recipients earned a bachelor’s degree from R1 doctoral universities, while only 36.2% of Black and 43.2% of AIAN doctorate recipients earned a bachelor’s degree from these very high research activity universities (table 1). In contrast, over three-quarters (76.8%) of Asian doctoral recipients who earned their undergraduate degrees in the United States earned a bachelor’s degree from R1 doctoral universities. Black and AIAN doctoral recipients had the highest percentages of bachelor’s degrees from other doctoral universities (25.6% and 23.1%, respectively) among all ethnic or racial groups.

Substantial numbers of doctorate recipients from all three underrepresented groups (Hispanic, Black, and AIAN) earned a bachelor’s degree from minority-serving institutions. Of those who earned a bachelor’s degree in the United States, 42.4% of Hispanic doctorate recipients earned a bachelor’s degree from a high-Hispanic-enrollment (HHE) institution, 25.7% of Black doctorate recipients earned a bachelor’s degree from a historically Black college or university (HBCU), and 6.8% of AIAN doctorate recipients earned a bachelor’s degree from a tribal college or high-AIAN enrollment (HAIANE) institution. An additional 19.2% of AIAN doctorate recipients earned a bachelor’s degree from an HHE institution.^{​High-Hispanic-enrollment (HHE) institutions are defined as those colleges and universities where at least 25% of the total undergraduate enrollment in 2020 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Completions Survey were identified as Hispanic. High–American Indian or Alaska Native-enrollment (HAIANE) institutions are defined as non-tribal colleges and universities where at least 10% of the total undergraduate enrollment in IPEDS 2020 were identified as AIAN.}

The relative importance of public and minority-serving institutions within the educational paths of underrepresented minority doctorate recipients is consistent with the overall postsecondary student enrollment patterns of U.S. citizens and permanent residents and highlights the role of minority-serving institutions as steppingstones on the path toward a research doctorate for underrepresented minority (URM) students.^{​National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). 2021. Enrollment. In Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering. NSF 21-321. Alexandria, VA: National Science Foundation. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21321/report/enrollment#enrollment.,​National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). 2020. Condition of Education: Postsecondary Education. NCES 2020144. Washington, DC: Department of Education. Available at https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/.}

Table 2 presents the top 50 U.S. baccalaureate-origin institutions for Black doctorate recipients who earned their doctorate in 2010–20. Combined, these institutions awarded bachelor’s degrees for nearly a third (30.9%) of all U.S. citizen and permanent resident Black doctorate recipients over the past decade. R1 doctoral universities account for 28 of the top 50 institutions, and 37 of the top 50 are public institutions. Only three of the top 50 institutions are classified by Carnegie as baccalaureate colleges and all three (Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Oakwood University) are HBCUs. That HBCUs constitute 8 of the top 10 and make up 19 of the top 50 institutions underscores the importance of these institutions in the education and production of Black doctorate recipients.

Table 3 presents the top 10 U.S. baccalaureate-origin institutions of Black doctorate recipients by broad field of doctorate. Although the top 10 institutions from table 2 are well represented in table 3, significant variation is seen across these broad field lists. Five institutions that were not in the overall top 50 list appear in the broad field top 10 lists: Alabama A&M University (physical sciences and earth sciences), Georgia Institute of Technology (engineering as well as mathematics and computer sciences), CUNY City College (engineering), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (engineering), and Princeton University (humanities and arts). Two institutions—Howard University and Florida A&M University—appear in the top 10 institutions for all eight broad fields.

Public institutions outnumber private institutions in all fields except for psychology and social sciences and for humanities and arts. Engineering is the only field where non-HBCUs outnumber HBCUs.

Among Hispanic doctorate recipients from 2010–20, approximately 4 of every 10 (42.4%) earned a bachelor’s degree from one of the 50 institutions listed in table 4. The top two baccalaureate origins of Hispanic doctorate recipients were from the University of Puerto Rico system and nearly one-third (32.3%) of all Hispanic doctorate recipients earned a bachelor’s degree from institutions in Puerto Rico, California, Texas, or Florida. Among the top 50 institutions, 38 were public institutions, and 37 were R1 doctoral universities; public R1 doctoral universities accounted for half of the top 50 institutions. Only two of the top 50 institutions were baccalaureate colleges (both University of Puerto Rico institutions), five were master’s institutions, and six were R2 doctoral universities. All the non-R1 institutions were public, and 26 of the top 50 institutions were HHE institutions.

Table 5 presents the top 10 U.S. baccalaureate-origin institutions of Hispanic doctorate recipients by broad field of doctorate. Again, public R1 doctoral universities dominate the top 10 baccalaureate-origins by broad field, accounting for at least half of the top 10 institutions in each field. HHE institutions are also well represented in these top 10 ranks, constituting 8 of the top 10 in education, seven of the top 10 in life sciences, and 6 of the top 11 in engineering and in mathematics and computer sciences. One of two University of Puerto Rico institutions—Mayaguez or Rio Piedras—occupy the top rank in all broad fields except in education, where the University of Texas, Austin occupies the top position.

Among AIAN doctorate recipients from 2010–20, 45.4% earned a bachelor’s degree from an institution listed in table 6, and 20.1% earned a bachelor’s degree from one of the top 10 AIAN baccalaureate institutions. These percentages are larger than the corresponding percentages for Hispanics (42.4% and 18.5%) and Blacks (30.9% and 11.2%), indicating that the pathways of AIAN doctorate recipients may be less diverse than those of other URM doctorate recipients.

Of these 53 institutions, 45 are public and 33 are R1 doctoral universities—more than half (28) are public R1 doctoral universities, making this the dominant institution type. Only one institution is a baccalaureate college (Fort Lewis College), seven are master’s institutions, and nine are R2 doctoral universities. Seven of the top 10 institutions are from three states—Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona. Of the top 53 institutions, one is a tribal college, and six others are high-AIAN-enrollment (HAIANE) institutions.

Table 7 shows the top U.S. baccalaureate origins of AIAN doctorate recipients by broad field. To reduce the risk of individual disclosure, this table only lists institutions where sufficient number of AIAN bachelor’s degree recipients went on to earn a U.S. research doctorate in the specified field between 2010 and 2020. Twelve institutions met these criteria within psychology and social sciences, 7 in education, and 6 in life sciences. Oklahoma State University, Stillwater and the University of Oklahoma, Norman were the only institutions listed in four or more broad fields. As with table 6, more than half of the institutions listed (16 of 29) are public R1 doctoral universities.

Because of the larger pool of potential doctorate recipients, rankings of baccalaureate-origin institutions based on the number of doctorate recipients who attended a particular institution may overemphasize the role of larger institutions and understate the contributions of smaller, non-R1 institutions in the production of doctorate recipients. The institutional-yield ratio (IYR) metric was created to address this disparity.^{​Burrelli J, Rapoport A. 2008. Baccalaureate Origins of S&E Doctorate Recipients. InfoBrief NSF 08-311. Arlington, VA: Division of Science Resources Statistics, National Science Foundation. Available at https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311. While IYR was first published in this InfoBrief, this concept was based on the research of Fuller (1986) and Carrier and Davis-Van Atta (1987) which found that several small private, liberal arts colleges contribute greatly to production of research doctorates.,​Fuller CH. 1986. Ph.D. Recipients: Where Did They Go to College? Change 18:42–51. Available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/40164449. Carrier SC, Davis-Van Atta D. 1987. Maintaining America’s Scientific Productivity: The Necessity of the Liberal Arts Colleges. Oberlin, Ohio: Oberlin College.} The IYR for a baccalaureate-origin institution is calculated as the number of graduates who earned a research doctorate over a given period (2010–20 in this analysis), divided by the number of bachelor’s degrees conferred by that institution over the period 9 years earlier (i.e., from 2001–11 for this analysis). This figure is then multiplied by 100 to express the term as a percentage or ratio. For example, if an institution has an IYR of 15.0 from 2010–20 it is estimated that 15% of that institution’s baccalaureate conferrals (or 15 out of every 100) received a doctorate within nine years of earning a bachelor’s degree.

Table 8 presents the top 50 baccalaureate-origin institutions for Black doctorate recipients from 2010–20, ranked by IYR. With the data normalized to control for the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by each institution, a different picture emerges. Public institutions and HBCUs, which predominated in table 2, are far fewer in number. Private colleges and universities become much more prominent and only one of the top 10 institutions in table 2 (Spelman College, rank 2) remains in the top 10 (rank 10) in table 8. When ranked by IYR, only 11 public institutions are listed in the top 50, and private institutions occupy the top 13 places in table 8. The number of Carnegie classified baccalaureate colleges increased from 3 in table 2  to 11 in table 8, including 5 of the top 10 IYRs. The number of HBCUs represented in the top 50 rankings declined from 19 to 7.

A similar change is seen when examining the IYR rankings of baccalaureate-origins for Hispanic doctorate recipients (table 9). Private institutions and baccalaureate colleges again become much more prominent, while the rankings of public and HHE institutions decline. Ranked by IYR, the top 31 institutions (and 41 of the top 50) were private colleges and universities. Although the number of R1 doctoral universities among the top 50 declined slightly (from 37 in table 4 to 33 in table 9), baccalaureate colleges increased from 2 to 14. Only one HHE institution (New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology) was ranked in the top 50 by IYR. The high IYR for the California Institute of Technology is notable and driven by the small size of their undergraduate population; from 2001–11 only 132 Hispanic students received a bachelor’s degree from the California Institute of Technology.

IYR rankings for AIAN doctorate recipients are not presented as few baccalaureate origin institutions had more than 25 AIAN doctorate recipients from 2010–20, the minimum number previously used to derive the IYR statistic. Calculation of the yield ratio with lower minimum number of AIAN doctorate recipients did not identify any new institutions other than those already listed in table 6, and the differences in the IYRs were small.

Overall, the results in this InfoBrief show that rankings of baccalaureate-origin institutions are highly dependent on whether production is viewed in absolute terms (number of bachelor’s degree recipients who complete a research doctorate) or relative terms (percentage of an institution’s bachelor’s degree recipients that complete a research doctorate). They also illustrate the varied educational pathways Black, Hispanic, and AIAN students take on their way to obtaining a U.S. research doctorate and the key role minority-serving institutions and many other institutions play in developing a diverse S&E workforce.

The Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) data are used to report the numbers of research doctorate recipients between 2010 and 2020, as well as their baccalaureate-origin institutions. Data from the Department of Education's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Completions Survey provide the numbers of bachelor's degrees awarded between 2001 and 2011 and were downloaded from the IPEDS Data Center. As seen in table 31 in the Survey of Earned Doctorates report, the median time from receipt of bachelor's degree to doctorate for all doctorate recipients between 2010 and 2020 was approximately 9 years (9.3 in 2010 and 8.7 in 2020). Among broad fields in 2020, time to degree was the shortest in physical sciences and earth sciences (7.0 years) and in engineering (7.5 years), and the longest in education (15.0 years). Due to the collection methods of race and ethnicity data in the IPEDS Completions Survey, the analysis of these underrepresented minorities in this InfoBrief is limited to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

The 2018 version of the Carnegie Basic Classification for the colleges and universities categorizes academic institutions on the basis of highest degree conferred, level of degree production, and research activity. Institutions that award at least 20 research or scholarship doctoral degrees per year are called doctorate universities and are distributed among three subgroups based on the level of research activity—R1 doctoral universities (very high research activity), R2 doctoral universities (high research activity), and doctoral/professional universities. In this InfoBrief, the latter two subgroups are combined into a single category, called "Other doctoral universities." Master's colleges and universities are institutions that award at least 50 master's degrees and fewer than 20 doctoral degrees per year. Baccalaureate colleges are non-tribal colleges that award fewer than 50 master's degrees or 20 doctoral degrees per year and at which baccalaureate or higher degrees represent at least 50% of all degrees. See https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/classification_descriptions/basic.php for more information on Carnegie Basic Classification.

Einaudi P, Gordon J, Kang K; National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). 2022. Baccalaureate Origins of Underrepresented Minority Doctorate Recipients. NSF 22-335. Alexandria, VA: National Science Foundation. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf22335/.

Peter Einaudi
RTI International, under contract to NCSES

Jonathan Gordon
RTI International, under contract to NCSES

Kelly Kang
Survey Manager
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E-mail: kkang@nsf.gov

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