Tech’s Diversity Problem Is Apparent as Early as High School

In three states, not a single girl took the Advanced Placement exam in computer science last year. In eight states, no Hispanic students took it. And in 11 states, no black students took the test. The data -- compiled by Barbara Ericson, director of computing outreach at Georgia Tech’s College of Computing -- illustrates just how deeply the tech industry’s lack of diversity reaches.

It also shows how rapidly the United States is falling behind in educating young people for computing jobs, which are growing more than twice as fast as the average for all occupations. “It matters because we don’t have enough people studying computer science in the United States to fill the projected number of jobs in the field,” Ericson said. Computer science stands out from other math and science courses in its lack of diversity. Over all, just 18.5 percent of students who took the AP exam in computer science were girls, while nearly half of calculus test takers were girls and more than half of biology test takers were girls, Ericson said.