High dropout rates have been a constant concern in some academic fields, most notably in science, engineering and math (SEM). “I’m concerned about the country’s engineering workforce,” said William A. Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering. “Numerically it’s down, and it’s increasingly composed of non-native-born individuals.”

Roughly half of the students who start out pursuing an engineering degree do not complete it, Wulf pointed out, citing that fact as a major factor in the shortage of U.S.-born engineers. “Engineering faculty members would like to think that they are flunking out the poor students,” he said. Yet many students who transfer out of SEM do well in other disciplines, so the blame for high attrition rates can’t all be laid on students. “If you ask students why they drop out of engineering,” Wulf said, “they will talk about things like poor teaching, poor advising and how infrequently they have seen an engineering professor.”

The University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) has embraced the challenge of raising persistence and graduation rates among SEM students by offering tutorial centers, peer counseling, group study and other support services.

University President Freeman Hrabowski III, an African-American mathematician with a doctorate from the University of Illinois, is particularly concerned about encouraging students of color in these rigorous academic disciplines. He points to the university’s 15-year-old Meyerhoff Scholarship Program as a keystone in that effort.

Each year, the nationally noted program chooses 50 first-year students, most of them African-Americans, from among 1,500 applicants who plan to eventually earn Ph.D.s or M.D./Ph.D.s. The Meyerhoff Scholars receive financial support and begin their undergraduate studies with a six-week college-prep boot camp that includes coursework, cultural exploration and meetings with leaders in science and technology. During the next four years, students receive regular academic counseling; form study groups; take part in community service, internships and undergraduate research; and receive help from working professionals in planning their graduate study and future careers.

Compared to students who had qualified for the program but gone elsewhere, Meyerhoff Scholars have been twice as likely to graduate with an SEM degree and more than five times as likely to attend graduate school in these fields.

Hrabowski cites two keys to helping students succeed in the sciences: setting high expectations and emphasizing the importance of a strong work ethic. “In the humanities and social sciences, you can slack off for a while and still survive if you can think and write well,” he said. “But work in the sciences and mathematics is cumulative. If you get behind, it’s tough to catch up. We encourage students who get a C in a course such as introductory calculus to take the course over. If you get a C in Calculus 1, there is no way you are going to get a B or an A in Calculus 2.”

For students of color, Hrabowski says, it’s also important to create an environment where “it’s cool to be smart” through contacts with faculty members outside class and through interaction with competent and like-minded peers.

“When most people see young black men walking across a campus, they think: ‘There goes the basketball team.’ We want them to think: ‘There goes the chemistry honors society,’ ” Hrabowski said.

Lamont Toliver, associate director of the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program, says that college presents a special challenge to students who are at the top of their high school classes but on campus find themselves among lots of bright people. “It can be a humbling experience,” he said. “But we have to help them realize that this is not rocket science. Succeeding is a matter of perseverance, tenacity and compassion more than anything else. We show them that they are part of a great team that will not let them fail. We tell them:‘Your dreams are worthy of our support.’ ”