Status and Trends in the Education of American Indians and Alaska Natives: 2008

NCES 2008-084
September 2008

Bachelor's Degrees Earned by Field

While a greater percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native students earned their bachelor's degrees in business than in other fields in the 2005–06 school year, the percentage who earned their degrees in business was smaller than that of all students.

Figure 6.5. Percentage of bachelor's degrees conferred in total and to American Indians/Alaska by degree-granting institutions in the 10 most popular fields of study: 2005–06

Percentage of bachelor's degrees conferred in total and to American Indians/Alaska
by degree-granting institutions in the 10 most popular fields of study: 2005–06

NOTE: Detail do not sum to totals because colleges and universities conferred degrees in many other fields not shown separately. Data are graphed using unrounded estimates while the value labels are rounded. Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics, 2007, based on 2005–06 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), Fall 2006.

In the 2005–06 school year, business, education, and social sciences were the most popular majors among American Indians/Alaska Natives earning bachelor's degrees. Nineteen percent of American Indian/Alaska Native college and university graduates studied business, while 12 percent studied a social science or history and 8 percent studied education. Compared with 2005–06 graduates in general, American Indians/Alaska Natives earned a smaller percentage of business and communications degrees and a larger percentage of education and social science degrees. There was a difference of less than 0.5 percent between the percentage of American Indians/Alaska Natives and the percentage of the total population earning degrees in visual and performing arts, health professions and related clinical sciences, biological and biomedical sciences, and psychology.

View Table 6.5