Female enrollment at Missouri S&T may have increased 41 percent since 2000, but women have not increased their share of the overall student population.
Growing from 1,050 in 2000 to 1,485 female students in the 2009 fall semester, the percentage of women at S&T has remained constant around 22-to-23 percent of all students.
Female enrollment in engineering, math or science programs, is lower with only 18 percent of all students in engineering programs being women. When non-engineering math and science programs are included, women make up 19 percent of all students in those programs, as of 2009.
In another comparison, 37 percent of women students were in non-engineering programs and 14 percent were in programs with no science or math basis. Of all male students, 21 percent were in non-engineering programs and 5 percent were in programs with no science or math basis. Both figures include students who have not declared a major.
“It seems difficult to get past the 20 percent level nationwide,” said Catherine Didion, senior program officer for the National Academy of Engineers (NAE).
In 1999, females received 21 percent of all engineering bachelor degrees nationwide — by 2008, it was 18 percent, according to NAE statistics. NAE figures include computer science, while S&T does not count it as an engineering discipline.
