Salaries and degree attainment are known to be predictors of research productivity.
"But we are not going to get the degree attainment levels the economy needs exclusively from finding 'efficiencies' here and there.
Shifting enrollments from four-year colleges to two-year colleges and from private nonprofit colleges to public colleges will lead to declines in bachelor's degree attainment.
If the Obama administration doesn't find savings elsewhere in the budget, these spending increases will force cuts in the Pell grant program, causing declines in Bachelor's degree attainment by low-income students.
"There is this narrative out there that we have enough money in the system, that if we only spent it better we could increase degree attainment," said Jane V. Wellman, founding director of the Delta Cost Project, which released a comprehensive report on college costs.
Non-financial assets and income are significant predictors of college degree attainment.
Figure 4 Bachelor degree attainment by state: national average is 27.22%.
Figure 5 Post graduate degree attainment by state: national average is 9.84%.
Figure 6 STEM degree attainment (% of total degrees) by state: national average is 31.84%.
Regardless, the relationship between acceptance, religiosity, and STEM degree attainment certainly warrants further research.
As predicted, there was a strong negative correlation between acceptance of evolution and religiosity and a strong positive relationship between acceptance and science degrees awarded, bachelor degree attainment, advanced degree attainment, average teacher salary, and GDP per capita.
