5 Hardest and Easiest College Majors by GPA's

(MoneyWatch)  Why aren't more college students earning degrees in engineering and the sciences?

About one out of three college students intend to pursue a STEM major, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math, but most never make it.

A new study from Wake Forest University suggests that a huge reason why so many students abandon their pursuit of science and engineering majors is this: Their professors are grading too hard.

Students, who hope to be science and engineering majors, get discouraged by their grades, which are significantly lower than students in other disciplines. Consequently, they flee for easier "A's". Male students are more likely to bail because of grades than would-be women STEM majors.

Kevin Rask, an economics professor at Wake Forest, drew that conclusion after reviewing the records of more than 5,000 students, who graduated from an unnamed elite liberal arts college in the Northeast from 2001 to 2009.

During this period, the science geeks earned grades that were consistently below other students. Brainy STEM graduates left their school with four out of the five lowest grade point averages:

5 Lowest Grade Point Averages

1. Chemistry 2.78 GPA
2. Math 2.90 GPA
3. Economics 2.95 GPA
4. Psychology 2.98 GPA
5. Biology 3.02 GPA

5 Highest Grade Point Averages

1. Education 3.36 GPA
2. Language 3.34 GPA
3. English 3.33 GPA
4. Music 3.30 GPA
5. Religion 3.22 GPA

At a recent conference at Cornell, Rask talked about his STEM major findings:

"The importance of grades can't be understated," the economist said. "The differential in grade inflation inside and outside STEM majors is consistent and an important factor in the attrition."

It seems to me that the best way to produce more scientists and engineers might be to get the professors in those fields to lighten up on their grades. Do the students, who are brave enough to wrestle with organic chemistry and multivariable calculus, need to be crushed at exam time?

The alternative is to get the professors in departments like education and English to grade harder, but I just don't see that ever happening.

Lynn O'Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller, and she also writes for TheCollegeSolutionBlog. Follow her on Twitter.

Science major image by Horia Varlan. CC 2.0.

[talk2farley]

"It seems to me that the best way to produce more scientists and engineers might be to get the professors in those fields to lighten up on their grades."

With all due respect, this is insulting to the students who do well in these fields. An education major is a useless diploma. It signals no special skills whatsoever to the market, either in broad terms of subject studied (one does not 'study' teaching, one studies the subjects he intends to teach) or talents as an individual (as reflected in grades, exam performance, etcetera).

The best an education major can hope for is to compete for slots in the public education system, which are not allocated on anything like a production-maximizing basis. In most jurisdictions, where unionization and lincesures severely restrict the supply, positions are simply allocated on a first-come first-serve basis. You don't need to signal anything special here; you simply queue up, fill out the proper forms, and wait (political connections help).

STEM professions don't work this way. They are actually IMPORTANT, and employers - recognizing the fact - look for signals regarding a candidates qualifications, then attempt to match that candidate to an appropriately demanding position. Academic performance in this case must remain a useful indicator, or the system breaks down. Employers and graduates lose, followed by social losses to society generally, when candidates can no longer be cheaply and efficiently well matched to employers.

Keep the STEM majors competitive. If nothing else, it weeds out the kids who don't really belong in college in the first place. At least then their Education and Studies programs are money-makers for the University, which subsidize the useful work done in the traditional departments.

[rbklein01]

As a licensed civil-environmental engineer, I would fear the results to our society if STEM professors "dumb down" the exams by making the problems easier. rhodes726 provided specific examples in his comments above of why this is a bad idea. To become a licensed engineer, physician, accountant, etc. you must pass examinations from the relevant professional organization. For engineering, typical pass rates are about 33 percent for first time exam takers. This indicates the professors should possibly be giving harder tests in college, not easier. I passed easily on my first try, which says that my professors did a good job of preparing me, while many of my classmates left the college of engineering for an easier business degree (where they belonged).

[rhodes726]

"Do the students, who are brave enough to wrestle with organic chemistry and multivariable calculus, need to be crushed at exam time?"

Yes. STEM students go into fields like medicine, engineering, and nationally-funded research. Do you really want the doctor treating your cancer to have skated by in biochemistry without having learned metabolic pathways in their entirety because being expected to do so and being graded accordingly would have affected an insignificant value like their undergraduate GPA? Maybe if you want your chance for successfully beating cancer to be lowered. Or would you want the engineer designing the new interstate bridge spanning the river near your town that you have to drive over for your daily commute to have gotten wrong answers (and thus NOT proved to learn the concepts and material) in Calculus III overlooked so he/she could have an A instead of a B? Maybe if you want your chance for a bridge collapse to increase.

The reason STEM majors face rigorous academic challenges is because there are no gray areas in these fields. You're either right or wrong, and oftentimes lives depend on that. Letting students be wrong but making them feel better about it could have dire consequences over the long term. I can't say too much for English majors, but I think their fields typically has less of an impact on medical treatment, structural integrity of new buildings, use of federal funds seeking scientific discovery, and so on. The U.S. is already falling behind the rest of the developed world in terms of scientific and technological research, please don't support the continuation of our current STEM downfall.

[Pula_Rorkn]

What's the big deal with grades? Chemistry majors with 2.8 averages aren't applying for the same jobs as music majors with a 3.3. Employers understand this as so do graduate schools. I remember our (Geology) department head telling us to stop worrying about grades and focus on learning the material.