A recent report by the American Institute of Physics tracks US physics and astronomy enrollments and degrees at all levels and looks at the representation of women, minorities, and non-US citizens.
Physics bachelor’s degree production continues to climb, with the nearly 5000 awarded in 2004 returning to levels last seen in the early 1990s. The proportion awarded to women reached 23% in 2001 and has since plateaued. At the PhD level, 16% of new degree recipients in 2004 were women, down from an all-time high of 18% the previous year. In astronomy, women made up 38% of bachelor’s and 29% of PhD recipients in the class of 2004. Among science and engineering fields, physics still has one of the lowest representations of women.
Six percent of physics bachelor’s recipients in 2004 were awarded to non-US citizens. Among the degrees awarded to US citizens, whites earned 4041, Asian Americans earned 198,...
