Who earns degrees in physics and astronomy?

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, African Americans earned 176, Hispanics earned 157, and other minorities earned 106. Fifty-two percent of the new African American physics bachelors received their degrees from fewer than 5% of the degree-granting departments, of which all but two—Harvard University and Chicago State University—are historically black colleges and universities. The top producer was Xavier University in New Orleans; it’s not yet clear how well it and the other campuses hit last year by Hurricane Katrina will rebound (see the story on page 28).

About 15% of physics bachelor’s recipients eventually earn a physics or astronomy PhD. That is six times the rate for bachelor’s recipients across all fields, according to the report. The report’s projections, which are based on recent enrollments and go through 2010, are for steady growth in physics PhD production.

But in 2004 the number of entering graduate students in physics fell by 4%, the first decline in six years. That drop includes a 2% rise in the number of US citizens and an 11% decrease (to 43% of the total) in the number of noncitizens newly enrolled. The 185 doctoral-granting physics departments averaged about six PhDs per year each in the three years ending with the class of 2004. MIT led the pack (granting an average of 34 PhDs), followed by the University of Texas at Austin, Stony Brook University, and the University of California, Berkeley, with 30 each.

These and other data are presented in the Enrollments and Degrees Report, 2004, which is available free of charge at http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/gradtrends.html or from AIP, Statistical Research Center, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740; email stats@aip.org ; phone 301-209-3070.