A Profile of Undergraduates in the Sciences

Abstract

The largest and oldest empirical study of higher educa tion in the United States indicates that the nation's science resources, as represented by the students who are planning undergraduate work in the sciences, have suffered serious erosion over the past two decades. Since 1966 early indicators of undergraduate interest in the sciences have been tracked by the annual survey of entering college freshmen conducted by the American Council on Education and ucla's Cooperative Institu tional Research Program (cirp). The cirp freshman and follow-up surveys are a rich source of data about the students who pursue higher education in the United States. In recent years more than 300,000 students attending some 600 two-year and four-year colleges and universities across the country have participated in the cirp freshman sur vey annually. The evidence from the cirp sur veys reveals a number of disturbing trends (Astin et al. 1987). Interest in fundamental undergraduate science majors among college freshmen has dropped dramati cally over the past 23 years. Freshman interest in tech nology careers has experienced an abrupt decline in just the past six years. And more than half the students who enter college planning to pursue science majors change their intended major to nonscience fields, cirp data also show that the science training of secondary school sci ence and mathematics teachers has deteriorated dramat

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