New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows the necessity of increasing efforts to increase the number of African American who study in STEM fields at American colleges and universities. The data shows that while Blacks are 10.8 percent of all employed workers, they make up only 6.4 percent of all employees in STEM occupations.
There are many STEM occupations where Blacks are a very small percentage of all workers. According to Census data, Blacks are 2.4 percent of all computer and information research scientists. 2.4 percent of the astronomers and physicists, and 2.4 percent of the actuaries. In engineering fields Blacks are 3.9 percent of the biomedical engineers, 3.2 percent of the aerospace engineers, 3 percent of the agricultural engineers, 2.7 percent of the nuclear engineers, and 1.1 percent of the mining and geological engineers.
