• Undergraduate enrollments increased 3 percent a year between 1986 and 1991. Part of this increase is due to higher participation rates by older students, women, and minorities. By 1991, 66 percent of the 12.4 million students enrolled in undergraduate institutions were women and minorities. (For more information see: Recent Trends in College Enrollments.)

• Freshmen interest in S& E majors is increasing. The percentages of underrepresented minorities planning to study physics, biology, and engineering doubled in the last 20 years. National Merit Scholars, who showed declining interest in the NS& E in the late eighties, expressed increasing interest in these majors between 1989 and 1992. (For more information see: Characteristics of American College Freshman.)

• Engineering enrollments have increased since 1990. This increase is attributable to participation by women and minorities, whose total enrollment reached 116,000 in 1991 or 31 percent of all undergraduate engineering enrollment. (For more information see: Engineering Enrollments.)

• Degrees continued to decline in some S& E fields. Between 1986 and 1991, the absolute number of degrees in engineering and mathematics/computer science fields showed a continual decline. In 1991, however, there was an upturn in natural science degrees due to increased participation rates for females. (For more information see: Engineering Enrollments.)

• Women and minorities obtained an increasing percentage of S& E degrees. Women obtained 45 percent of all bachelors degrees in the natural sciences in 1991. Their participation rate in engineering degrees grew from 2 to 16 percent between 1975 and 1991. Underrepresented minorities (blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans) modestly improved their participation rates in S& E degrees, from 9.5 percent in 1977 to 10.7 percent in 1991. (For more information see: Bachelors Degrees by Sex and Bachelors Degrees by Race/Ethnicity.)

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