Economic Scale of the U.S. Student Loan Debt Problem

Sources of Student Loan Debt:

Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. By Catherine Hill, Ph.D. Christianne Corbett Andresse St. Rose, Ed.D. “Just not interested”. Many girls and women report that they are not interested in science and engineering. In a 2009 poll of young people ages 8–17 by the American Society for Quality, 24 percent of boys but only 5 percent of girls said they were interested in an engineering career. Another recent poll found that 74 percent of college-bound boys ages 13–17 said that computer science or computing would be a good college major for them compared with 32 percent of their female peers (WGBH Education Foundation & Association for Computing Machinery, 2009). From early adolescence, girls express less interest in math or science careers than boys do (Lapan et al., 2000; Turner et al., 2008). Even girls and women who excel in mathematics often do not pursue STEM fields. In studies of high mathematics achievers, for example, women are more likely to secure degrees in the humanities, life sciences, and social sciences than in math, computer science, engineering, or the physical sciences; the reverse is true for men (Lubinski & Benbow, 2006)… Among first-year college students, women are much less likely than men to say that they intend to major in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). By graduation, men outnumber women in nearly every science and engineering field, and in some, such as physics, engineering, and computer science, the difference is dramatic, with women earning only 20 percent of bachelor’s degrees. Women’s representation in science and engineering declines further.

Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015 Population Characteristics By Camille L. Ryan and Kurt Bauman Current Population Reports. P20-578 March 2016:

See also: College Majors Ranked by Lifetime Earnings