2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

BIPOC students remain underrepresented in undergraduate engineering programs despite decades of effort that have been contributed to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM education. From 2013 to 2022, the percentage of White K-12 students in Texas has decreased from 30.66% to 26.74%. Meanwhile, the Hispanic/Latino student population has increased from 50.17% to 52.36%. The percentage of Black or African American students has remained almost consistent, going from 12.50% to 12.65%. Additionally, the population of students identifying as two or more races has increased from 1.78% to 2.89%, and the population of Asian students has increased from 3.65% to 4.68%. Compared to national enrollment by year, we found lower percentages of Black or African American and Asian students in Texas. In particular, Texas had a significantly smaller population of Black or African American female students than the US (7.57% in 2013 and 7.37% in 2022), with only 6.61% in Texas and 6.20% in 2022. This indicates a significant disparity between gender representation in K-12 and engineering education. This finding is distressing and shows that there may be reasons deterring females from seeking engineering degrees. In this paper, we collect data and conduct a detailed case study by closely examining the national, state, and university data on Engineering education (including enrollment and completion). We are dedicated to identifying the primary factors and barriers influencing the education of BIPOC and female students in the field of Engineering by using machine learning based on the collected data. Finally, the results, challenges, and future trends/efforts are discussed. The findings from this paper are shared and provided to reduce barriers and promote engineering education.