The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce published a study recently that highlighted the fact that a disproportionately large percentage of African American students major in subject areas that lead to relatively lower incomes (social work, public administration, sociology, etc.), while they are under-represented in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math), which tend to lead to higher income careers.
In an article referencing this study, a Philadelphia Inquirer writer interviewed local students and school administrators, seeking to understand why this gap exists.
One student at Temple University said she was a semester away from graduating with a marketing degree, until she just happened to take a class in risk management that totally changed her outlook. She decided to invest the additional time and expense to change to risk management as a major, a program for which that she found she had a high aptitude.
Steven Fine, who works for Brimm Medical Arts High School, a magnet school in Camden, NJ, organizes weekly talks for high school students, enlisting speakers from the STEM professions to acquaint them with careers in medicine and engineering that are available. Fine says that, for most of these students, their family members and friends are not involved in these fields, so “how are they to know those careers exist?”
How, indeed? Are there high school guidance counselors employed by the school districts? Are there informed admissions counselors employed by all manner of colleges and trade schools? Are there college faculty serving as academic advisors for incoming students? Yes, yes and yes. But exactly where are they in this unfortunate situation? Are they themselves not equipped to understand the world we live in, and translate this to the students entrusted to them who are in most need of their guidance?
God bless the Steven Fines of the world. Would that we had more of them.