At top public universities, a mixed record for women in engineering

By Nick Anderson
http://twitter.com/wpnick

September 21



Students pass through the Lawn at the University of Virginia. (Norm Shafer/for The Washington Post)

Women earned about a third of all engineering degrees at the University of Virginia in 2015, making the state flagship first on that measure among prominent public schools nationwide. ... But reaching gender parity in engineering could take many years for U-Va. and other public universities.

Federal data show women earned a majority of bachelor’s degrees in engineering in 2015 at two private schools with sizable programs. At Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, their share was 53 percent, and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology it was 51 percent.

Women netted at least 40 percent of engineering degrees that year at Yale (49 percent), Howard (45), George Washington (43), Harvey Mudd (42), Brown (41) and Southern Methodist (41).

{Women break barriers in computer science and engineering at some top colleges}

The national average is about 20 percent, reflecting generations of male dominance in the field. The female share of engineering graduates at most prominent public universities hovers around that mark because those schools have far higher enrollment than private schools. Georgia Tech, with nearly 2,000 engineering graduates a year, has one of the largest programs in the country. It produces more engineering degrees than all of the above-named private schools combined, and the female share of its engineering graduates was 26 percent in 2015, up nearly 5 points in five years.