This paper examines differences in STEM retention between minority and non-minority students enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1980 through 2006. Using detailed administrative records of undergraduate students, we document that minority students and non-minority students take divergent pathways through the STEM major. Specifically, minority students take fewer lower division STEM courses in their early career, which delays their enrollment in upper division STEM courses and leads to lower graduation probability in STEM within four years and higher dropout rates. We investigate the potential reasons (and/or predictors) for this apparent discrepancy. To do so, we first identify a student’s major-specific Individual Performance Potential (IPP) from lower division course regressions. We find that once we control for the heterogeneity in the IPP’s and a rich set of term level controls, the differences in intermediate outcomes (declared major, STEM course load) between minority and non-minority students largely disappear, but that some of the gap in outcomes persist, with the exception being in graduation from STEM within five years, for which minority students are more likely after controlling for these factors. Our findings suggest that minority STEM majors would benefit from additional support such as early career course advising.

本文研究了 1980 年至 2006 年在加州大学洛杉矶分校 (UCLA) 就读的少数族裔和非少数族裔学生在 STEM 保留率方面的差异。使用本科生的详细行政记录，我们记录了少数族裔学生和非少数族裔学生在通过 STEM 专业的不同途径。具体而言，少数民族学生在职业生涯早期学习的低年级 STEM 课程较少，这延迟了他们进入高年级 STEM 课程的时间，并导致四年内 STEM 毕业概率较低，辍学率较高。我们调查了这种明显差异的潜在原因（和/或预测因素）。为此，我们首先从低年级课程回归中确定学生特定于专业的个人表现潜力 (IPP)。我们发现，一旦我们控制了 IPP 的异质性和一组丰富的学期水平控制，少数民族和非少数民族学生之间的中间结果（申报的专业、STEM 课程负荷）的差异在很大程度上消失了，但一些差距结果持续存在，除了在五年内从 STEM 毕业，少数族裔学生在控制这些因素后更有可能这样做。我们的研究结果表明，少数 STEM 专业的学生将受益于额外的支持，例如早期职业课程建议。除了在五年内从 STEM 毕业，少数族裔学生在控制这些因素后更有可能。我们的研究结果表明，少数 STEM 专业的学生将受益于额外的支持，例如早期职业课程建议。除了在五年内从 STEM 毕业，少数族裔学生在控制这些因素后更有可能毕业。我们的研究结果表明，少数 STEM 专业的学生将受益于额外的支持，例如早期职业课程建议。