Laying the Tracks for Successful Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education: What Can We Learn from Comparisons of Immigrant–Native Achievement in the USA?

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0106.12213
• Author: Ning Jia
• Date: 01 February 2019
• Published date: 01 February 2019

LAYING THE TRACKS FOR SUCCESSFUL SCIENCE,

TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS

EDUCATION: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM

COMPARISONS OF IMMIGRANT–NATIVE

ACHIEVEMENT IN THE USA?

NING JIA*Central University of Finance and Economics

Abstract. This paper examines the immigrant–native achievement gap in science, technology,

engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in college in the USA. Using student survey data from

the Beginning Postsecondary Longitudinal Studies 2004/09, I find that on average immigrant

students have significantly higher rates entering and persisting in STEM fields compared to their

native counterparts. There is, however, considerable variation across immigrant generations and race

and ethnicity. The immigrant attainment advantage is particularly large among first-generation Asian

and white immigrant students who attended foreign K–12 schools. I explore the channels leading to

the achievement gap, including socioeconomic status, individual preferences, and academic

preparation in math and science. Results suggest that the immigrant STEM advantage is largely

due to better academic preparation in math and science in high school. This indicates that

improvements in students’college STEM attainment may depend crucially on policy efforts devoted

to strengthening the quality of high school math and science education.

1. INTRODUCTION

Given the importance of a high-skilled workforce to knowledge generation and

economic competitiveness in the global economy, many countries have identi-

fied the improvement of science, technology, engineering and mathematics

(STEM) education as a national priority. In the USA, the federal government

invests approximately $3 billion each year on over 250 distinct programmes to

promote students’participation and performance in STEM fields. The goal is

to increase US college graduates with STEM degrees by one million over the

number expected at the current rates in the next decade.1This announcement

came amidst growing concerns over secondary school students’low academic

achievement in math and science. In the latest Program for International

*Address for Correspondence: Ning Jia, China Center for Human Capital and Labor Market

Research, Central University of Finance and Economics, 39 South College Road, Haidian District,

Beijing, China 100081. E-mail: ningjia.chlr@gmail.com. This research is based upon original work

supported by the Association for Institutional Research, the National Science Foundation, the

National Center for Education Statistics, and the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative

under Association for Institutional Research Grant Number DG13-29. Any opinions, findings and

conclusions or recommendations expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily

reflect the views of the Association for Institutional Research, the National Science Foundation,

the National Center for Education Statistics or the National Postsecondary Education Cooperative.

The author would like to thank Abigail Wozniak, William Evans, Daniel Hungerman, Steven

Lugauer, and seminar participants at the University of Notre Dame for their advice and support.

1Source: The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, 23 November 2009, ‘President Obama

Launches ‘Educate to Innovate’Campaign for Excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering &

Math (Stem) Education’.

Pacific Economic Review,••:•• (2017) pp. 1–24

doi: 10.1111/1468-0106.12213

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

Pacific Economic Review

, 24: 1 (2019) pp. 113–136

doi:10.1111/1468-0106.12213

Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment on the skills and knowl-

edge of 15-year-old students conducted by the OECD, US teens ranked only 31st

in math and 24th in science among students from 65 education systems, and this

places them well behind many of their peers from Asia and Europe.2

Interestingly, the existing college-educated workforce in the USA exhibits a

high concentration of immigrants in STEM fields. According to data from the

National Science Foundation (NSF), 26% of college-educated STEM workers

are foreign-born, and this is twice their share of the total working population.

Of these foreign-born STEM workers, approximately 90% are from Asia and

Europe. While there is a rich literature on the impacts of high-skilled immigrants

in the labour force (Card and Shleifer, 2009; Hunt and Loiselle, 2010; Kerr and

Lincoln, 2010; Peri and Sparber, 2011; Hanson and Slaughter,2016), we currently

know little about immigrant students in the STEM pipeline in US postsecondary

education. A clearer picture of immigrant students’STEM achievementis impor-

tant as immigrants account for a large and increasing share of today’s US under-

graduate student population. A recent report by the Education Department’s

National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) demonstrates that approxi-

mately 10% of the 2007–2008 college students were first-generation immigrants,

and 13% were second-generation immigrants with foreign-born parents.3

In this paper, I first provide evidence on the immigrant–native gap in the

college STEM-major pipeline. This fills a need in the literature on the foreign-

born skilled workforce, as most papers do not distinguish whether the immigrants

obtained college degrees in the USA or in their home country before coming to the

USA4Specifically, I answer two questions in this descriptive analysis. First, is the

immigrant–native gap in the STEM workforce observed in the STEM pipeline in

college? Second, how do STEM enrolment and persistence patterns differ across

immigration generations as well as racial and ethnic groups? I then turn to the

question of what explains these gaps. Specifically, to what extent are the different

patterns explained by the observable characteristics? I consider three channels

that might lead to immigrants’higher educational attainment in STEM fields,

including socioeconomic status (SES), individual preferences, and academic

preparation in math and science. By examining how each channel leads to the

immigrant–native STEM achievement gaps in college, the paper attempts to

reveal some of the challenges to STEM achievement faced by native students

and provides a better understanding of the factors that contribute to successful

US STEM education. For example, if the immigrant students’STEM advantage

2Source: PISA 2012 Results in Focus: What 15-year-olds Know and What They Can Do With

What They Know: Key Results from PISA 2012, OECD, 2012.

3Source: National Center for Education Statistics, 2012, ‘New Americans in Postsecondary

Education: A Profile of Immigrant and Second-Generation American Undergraduates’. Two recent

studies have examined the rise of foreign undergraduate students enrolled in US colleges and

universities. Bound et al. (2016) show that the decreases in state appropriations led to increases in

foreign enrolment at public universities. Shen (2016) found a crowding-out effect of the inflow of

foreign undergraduate students on the enrolment of native students.

4Using data from the American Community Survey, Hanson and Slaughter (2016) show that

approximately 60% of foreign-born STEM workers with a bachelor’s degree arrived in the USA at

age 21 or older.

N. JIA2

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

is mainly due to stronger academic preparation in math and science, then more

efforts should be devoted to enhancing students’math and science skills in high

school. Alternatively, if the immigrant–native STEM achievement gap arises

from different individual preferences, then the focus of policies should be to

inspire and motivate more native students to study STEM majors and pursue

STEM careers.

Using nationally representative student survey data from the Beginning

Postsecondary Longitudinal Studies 2004/09 (BPS 2004/09) from NCES, I clas-

sify students’immigrant generational status based on where they were born,

where their parents were born and where they were educated before college.

The four groups in the sample are native students with US-born parents,

second-generation immigrant students (i.e. born in the USA with foreign-born

parents), 1.5-generation immigrant students who came to the USA before or

in their early teens and were educated in the USA before college, and recent

first-generation immigrant students who attended foreign K–12 schools. For

each immigrant generation, I further explore the heterogeneity across race and

ethnicity, with the immigrant population classified into Asian, European-

descent (white), African-descent (black) and Hispanic.

Consistent with the patterns observed in the college-educated STEM

workforce, I first show that immigrant students on average achieve significantly

higher in STEM fields compared to US natives, when achievement is measured

as enrolment or completion. For example, the STEM entry rate is 13.6 percent-

age points higher among recent first-generation immigrants, and 3.5 percentage

points and 2.1 percentage points higher among 1.5-generation and second-

generation immigrant students, respectively. However, 1.5-generation and

second-generation immigrant students are not statistically different from natives

in entering a STEM field.

Second, the results demonstrate a substantial amount of heterogeneity in

immigrant students’STEM achievement across race and ethnicity. The

immigrant STEM attainment advantage is particularly large among Asian and

white students. After accounting for socioeconomic status and individual

preferences, recent first-generation Asian immigrant students are approximately

19 percentage points more likely than natives to have a STEM major, while the

likelihood for 1.5-generation Asian immigrant students is approximately 11

percentage points higher, and 13 percentage points higher for second-generation

Asian immigrant students. The coefficients are large and statistically significant.

The estimates are alsopositive and large for recent first-generation and non-recent

first-generation white immigrants. By contrast, among black students, the

immigrant STEM advantage is found only among the recent first generation,

and is not significant for Hispanics for any immigrant generations.5

Given the higher STEM enrolment and completion rates among Asian and

white immigrants, I then focus on investigating the underlying channels leading

to their STEM attainment advantage in college. I first show that the estimated

5As demonstrated later in the paper, although first-generation black students are more likely than

native students to enter a STEM major, they are less likely to persist and complete the degree after

entry.

IMMIGRANT-NATIVE ATTAINMENT GAP IN STEM IN THE US 3

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

N. JIA

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