Connections between graduate student salary, recruitment, and diversity: Does more money help?

Graduate programs in the geosciences have notoriously low numbers of UnderRepresented Minority students (URM: Black, Latinx, and Native American). In 2016, only 6% of PhDs in Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science went to domestic URM students, despite making up 31% of total US population. How can departments recruit and retain a more diverse cohort of graduate students? Despite being a strong and widely acknowledged driver in recruiting and retaining talented employees in the private sector, salary is seldom examined as a factor in students' choices to accept offers and stay in graduate programs. Though the factors affecting an individual student's choices are myriad, URM students may be more sensitive to salary than their white peers. Here I compile data from numerous geoscience departments on graduate student applications, offers, acceptances, and completions, with respect to graduate student salary and recruitment/retention of URM students. The results could help better inform department policy on the importance of salary in the decision of URM students to accept offers and stay in graduate programs, and lead to improved recruitment strategies.