The race gap in STEM is also entrenched. While the percentage of white students pursuing bachelor's degrees in STEM grew almost 3% from 2009 to 2014, in the same five years, the percentage of black students pursuing STEM degrees grew less than 1%. As the authors of the study point out, major educational and recruitment efforts have been pursued at great expense in the last decade and a half to correct this imbalance. Clearly, those efforts haven't been enough. This report comes just days after one of the tech industry's most visible companies — Facebook — released a report showing that its efforts at recruiting and retaining women and ethnic minorities have come up short. Despite much-touted diversity initiatives at the company, the numbers reported are dismal. For example, out of 1,231 people hired by Facebook in 2013, only seven were black, reported the Guardian. 84% of employees working on "core technology" are male.