ACM Tech News

Lead by Women in Graduate Degrees Doesn't Extend to IT
Computerworld (09/14/10) Patrick Thibodeau

Women received 60 percent of the master's degrees and 50.4 percent of the doctorates in the 2008-09 academic year, but degrees in computer and information sciences were overwhelming earned by men, according to the latest annual survey of graduate school enrollments by the Council of Graduate Schools. The council reports that women accounted for only 3,249 first-time graduate or doctoral students in computer and information sciences, compared to 9,021 men. And the overall year-to-year growth in computer science enrollments was less than 1 percent. "Over the last year, the growth that did occur in computer science was actually due to an increase in men," says Nathan Bell, director of research and policy analysis for the council. "We saw a decline in the number of women in computer science in 2009." The first-time enrollment of women in computer science programs fell 3.5 percent from 2008, while male enrollment increased 0.2 percent. The average annual rate of increase had been 4.8 percent since 2004 for women and 2.9 percent for men.

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