  Underrepresented minority (URM) students are subjected to historically rooted
inequities when pursuing an education, especially in STEM disciplines with
little diversity. In order to make STEM education equitable and inclusive,
evidence for how students from different racial/ethnic demographics are faring
is necessary. We use 10 years of institutional data at a large public
university to investigate trends in the majors that Asian, URM, and White
students declare, drop after declaring, and earn degrees in as well as the GPA
of the students who drop or earn a degree. We find that higher percentages of
the URM students drop most majors compared to other students and these trends
are particularly pronounced in physics and economics. Moreover, we find
alarming GPA trends in that the URM students consistently earn lower grades
than their Asian and White peers. Furthermore, in some STEM disciplines, the
URM students who earn a degree are earning the same grades as the Asian and
White students who dropped the major. This troubling trend may signify lack of
sufficient support, mentoring, and guidance to ensure excellence of the URM
students who are already severely disadvantaged. These quantitative findings
call for making learning environments equitable and inclusive so that many URM
students who come to college with severe disadvantages are appropriately
supported and can excel similar to other students.
