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Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, this article showcases the findings of a two-year study using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) at the National Center for Education Statistics, to effectively measure the efficiency of Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) graduating Hispanics with STEM degrees. The guiding research question was: On what input measures do we select efficient HSIs to serve other HSI institutions as possible benchmarks for program improvement in graduating Hispanics with STEM degrees? An outcome of this work is a framework for investigating and organizing best practices at HSIs for increasing Hispanics earning STEM degrees. The project notably advances knowledge within the field of HSI research. Of the HSI studies published between 1978 and 2021, none used DEA and therefore, the proposed project has the potential to sprout a new branch of HSI research. The proposed project also has the potential to broadly impact desired American societal outcomes. Scientific literacy is one of the benefits from earning a STEM degree. Increasing Hispanics graduating with STEM degrees will here too, result in more voices that can purposefully engage in informed public discourse on science and technology policy, and especially on issues relevant to the Hispanic community. 

The present study illustrates how select data can be organized to guide researchers to HSIs proficient at graduating Hispanics with STEM bachelor’s degrees to investigate best practices that less proficient HSIs can adopt for program improvement. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) was the data source. The primary analytic consisted of the scatterplot, supplemented by Pearson correlation r and regression analysis. While the findings failed to support the Hispanic undergraduate Pell rate as an explanatory variable for Hispanic STEM degree production capacity as the response variable, in a new light, the findings were an ideal model for initiating best practices research. Guidelines on initiating a “thousand word” discourse on best practices among HSI stakeholders, common defining moments one should anticipate at site visits, as well as the limitations and assumptions of the approach are presented. Based on the data, if low performing HSIs met the minimum benchmark level identified, the model predicted an increase of 17,392 or 50.7% additional Hispanics with STEM degrees for the US academic, technical, and professional workforce.