Using a dataset from universities in the U.S. that includes over 90,000 first-time-in-college students and over 26,000 transfer students who majored in engineering, this work describes the demographics and outcomes for students starting in and transferring into Mechanical Engineering (ME). This aims to inform the decision making of faculty, department heads, and deans. Although men consistently outnumber women in ME, the rates of matriculation and six-year graduation vary by race/ ethnicity and gender. Retention is higher in ME than in the aggregate of all engineering majors for Asian, White, and Black students, but not for Hispanic students. While about half of ME starters leave, most are replaced by switchers and transfers. Black males are noticeably absent from this 'replacement' population. Black males are also the least likely to stick with ME through graduation. Asian females are the most likely to graduate in ME. Pathways of ME starters and ME graduates are illustrated. Nearly half of all ME graduates started somewhere other than ME.Despite calls to diversify the engineering profession, 6,7 ME lacks diversity even compared to other engineering disciplines, 8,9 particularly with respect to gender,

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This longitudinal multi-institution study examines student outcomes and demographics in aerospace engineering in the United States over the period of 1987 to 2010. This large sample allows adoption of an intersectional framework to study race/ethnicity and gender together. In this paper, the demographics of students who choose aerospace engineering, their six-year graduation rates, trajectories of students entering and leaving aerospace engineering, and the "stickiness" of the discipline are examined. Hispanic men and women starting in engineering choose aerospace engineering at the highest rates (13.3 and 12.0%, respectively). Aerospace engineering graduation rates lag other disciplines, at best, by nine percentage points among Hispanic females and, at worst, by 24 percentage points among Black females. Retention in aerospace engineering is low for all students, but it is particularly so for Black men and women (both less than 12%). The result is an average of one Black woman graduate per program every 12.5 years. Asian women also have abnormally low persistence rates in aerospace engineering compared with other engineering disciplines (18.8 versus 40.9%). Students who start in aerospace engineering are 1.7 times more likely to leave the institution than to earn an aerospace engineering degree in six years. Recommendations for improving student retention include implementing programs to build community, as well as mentoring and encouragement.

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