Computer science programs are a hot topic these days as interest in the STEM fields continue to grow. Despite massive growth in computer science employment opportunities over the past decade, women are still highly underrepresented. In fact, according to a report from Fortune, the number of female computing professionals has fallen by 35% since 1990. In 2013, women represented only 26% of all computer science professionals.
In an effort to turn this male-dominated field into a more gender-balanced industry, many changes have started to take place. To start, there’s been a push from organizations such as Girls Who Code and Girls, Inc. to encourage female students to become interested and involved in technology at an earlier age. And at the college level, universities have begun to tailor their computer science programs to be more inclusive. These efforts seem to be making a difference with the percentage of female students completing a computer science degree increasing by 76% over the past five years.
StudySoup.com took a look at the top-ranked U.S. universities for computer science that are also offering an inclusive environment for female students looking to enter into the industry.
Methodology
For this ranking, StudySoup.com consulted a variety of authoritative resources including the National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. News & World Report, StartClass, and PayScale to create a list of what we believe to be the top computer science programs for women in the U.S. Our report includes data points for each school including acceptance rate, tuition, popularity rank of the computer science program, the percentage of female students within the computer science program, graduation rate, and average starting salary.
Top 20 Computer Science Programs
In order to learn more about why these programs scored so highly on this list, please visit StudySoup.com for the full report that provides additional details on each school.
Harvey Mudd College
Dartmouth College
Harvard University
Rice University
Pennsylvania State
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
College of William and Mary
University of Southern California
Emory University
Princeton University
Georgetown University
Columbia University
North Carolina State University
University of Notre Dame
Carnegie Mellon University
Cornell University
University of North Carolina – Charlotte
University of California – Berkeley
University of Pennsylvania
California Institute of Technology
Looking for computer science scholarships? You can find several computer science scholarships for college and graduate school on our list of 100+ college and graduate school scholarships for women of color.
