Engineering Colleges – A Broad Spectrum

Over 300 universities in the US award undergraduate degrees and over 200 award graduate degrees. In this study, Engineering Trends looked for the similarities and differences in these colleges. (For the purposes of this article, “college” is used for any overall engineering education activity at a university, including schools, institutes and departments.)

The Size Spectrum

The range of sizes of engineering colleges is large, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The universities having the greatest number of engineering bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees awarded 1245, 946 and 229 degrees, respectively (ASEE data). The distribution of bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in US engineering colleges is shown in the graph below.

Of the engineering colleges represented in the graph above, most are in the region having less than 40 doctoral degrees and less than 400 bachelor’s degrees. Only 28 colleges award larger numbers of bachelor’s and doctoral degrees. A closer view of the BS<400 and PhD<40 region is shown in the graph below.

In light of the broad range of numbers of degrees awarded by US engineering colleges, it was instructive to compare “degree production” as a function of relative college size. Colleges were ranked according to the number of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees awarded in AY2001-02. Cumulative data for numbers of engineering degrees versus universities awarding those degrees are shown in the graph below.

About 50% of the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees are awarded by the largest 15% of the engineering colleges. Somewhat surprisingly, these fractions are essentially independent of the type of degree. Consider the 28 colleges that awarded >400 bachelor’s degrees and >40 doctoral degrees in AY 2001-02. These colleges constituted the largest 9% and 16% of colleges awarding bachelor’s and doctoral degrees, respectively. The graph indicates that these colleges awarded 34% and 54% of the bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in the US that year.

The corollary to the 50%-15% finding is that 15% of the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees are awarded by 50% of the colleges awarding those degrees.

(We hasten to add that the emphasis in this report on quantity should not be interpreted to indicate the quality of undergraduate and graduate engineering programs.)

Degree – Faculty Ratios

Measures such as bachelor’s degrees and doctoral degrees per engineering faculty member provide an insight to the manner in which colleges balance undergraduate and graduate activities to best suit their academic teaching and research objectives.

The present study used data from ASEE annual surveys for tenured (plus tenure track) faculty (all academic ranks combined) for Fall 2001 and bachelor’s and doctoral degrees for AY 2001-02. Data were obtained for 265 colleges that reported faculty numbers for Fall 2001. The maximum values were B/F=11.7, M/F=9.8 and D/F=1.0. The graph shown below excludes the highest B/F data point.

The data indicate that engineering colleges with large D/F values have low B/F values and vice versa. That is, any engineering college has academic effort constraints that preclude the area of the graph that lies to the right of the dashed red line.

The large green and orange dots on the graph are averages for colleges reporting data for faculty, bachelor’s degrees and doctoral degrees (160 colleges). The ratios of the sums of the degrees divided by the faculty total is represented by the green dot. The orange dot is the average B/F versus the average D/F. The green and orange dots favor the colleges awarding the largest and smallest numbers of doctoral degrees, respectively.

The Undergraduate Discipline Spectrum

The larger engineering colleges typically have larger numbers of engineering disciplines. The graph below shows the breadth of the distribution (EWC data). “Disciplines” as used here are

the fields of undergraduate degrees awarded. Since an academic department may award degrees in more than one field, the number of disciplines might exceed the number of departments in a college. Two-thirds of the colleges award degrees in six or fewer disciplines.

The table below (EWC data) ranks engineering disciplines according to the undergraduate degrees awarded in AY2001-02. Also shown are the number of colleges awarding degrees and the largest number of discipline degrees awarded by any college.

1. Includes computer eng., computer sci., software eng., etc.
2. Includes mining, geological and minerals engineering.

The study of engineering disciplines also showed:

• The five disciplines with the greatest numbers of undergraduate degrees award 85% of the total number of engineering bachelor’s degrees in the US in AY2001-02.
   
• The fraction of colleges that awarded degrees in all of the “top five” disciplines was 35% of the total.
   
• Of those colleges that awarded electrical engineering bachelor’s degrees, 43% awarded degrees in the other “top five”.

Summary

The engineering college spectrum is broad in many ways. In AY2001-02, engineering degrees awarded by colleges ranged from zero to 1245 for bachelor’s degrees, to 946 for master’s and to 229 for doctoral. Of the colleges reporting, 321 awarded bachelor’s degrees, 233 master’s degrees and 175 doctoral degrees. The largest 15% in each degree group awarded about 50% of the degrees. The smallest 50% awarded about 15%.

Degrees per engineering faculty member data exhibited a wide range. For bachelor’s degrees, the largest value was 11.7 (much higher than next-largest value of 7.1). The maximum values for master’s and doctoral degrees were 9.8 and 1.0, respectively. For colleges reporting non-zero values for faculty numbers and bachelor’s and doctoral degrees, the average ratios were 2.94 and 0.259 for bachelor’s and doctoral degrees, respectively.

The number of undergraduate degree disciplines in colleges varied widely – from one to sixteen. About two-thirds of the engineering colleges awarded bachelor’s degrees in six or fewer disciplines. The “top five” disciplines in degrees awarded in AY2001-02 (computer (both engineering and science), mechanical, electrical, civil and chemical) amounted to 85% of the total number of engineering bachelor’s degrees in the US.

There appears to be no prototypical engineering college in the US. Each has its own unique features considering just the limited number of parameters used in this study. In terms of college comparisons or “benchmarking”, care should be taken to select universities that are similar in many respects and to be aware of the fact that engineering colleges can differ substantially.

Acknowledgments

The data for this study came from the annual surveys of the Engineering Workforce Commission of the American Association of Engineering Societies and the American Society for Engineering Education. Engineering Trends acknowledges their efforts in providing credible data and expresses its gratitude for their services to the engineering profession.

Footnote

Engineering Trends data are compiled from information submitted by universities to the annual surveys of EWC and ASEE. On the very rare occasions where errors in data appear, Engineering Trends corrects the error, if possible, or deletes the data if the error is large enough to alter significantly the trend of the university or the US total.