minority groups express an interest in pursuing a STEM undergraduate degree at the same rate as all other freshmen, only 22.1 percent of Latino students, 18.4 percent of African-American students, and 18.8 percent of Native American students studying in STEM fields complete their degree within 5 years, compared to an approximate 33 percent and 42 percent 5-year completion rate for White and Asian students, respectively. (7) According to the 2015 Asian Americans Advancing Justice report Making America Work , data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) on average hide the fact that some subgroups are underrepresented in STEM fields. For example: only 9 percent of Cambodian, 8 percent of Laotian, 8 percent of Hmong, and 7 percent of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander workers hold STEM jobs, compared to 12 percent of the total American population holding STEM jobs. (8) According to 3-year estimates from the 2013 American Community Survey, Southeast Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have higher poverty rates and lower educational attainment rates compared to the overall population. Fifteen percent of the overall population lives below the Federal poverty level, while 21 percent of Pacific Islanders, 21 percent of Cambodian, 26 percent of Hmong, 17 percent of Laotian, and 16 percent of Vietnamese community members live in poverty. Compared to 29 percent of the overall population with a bachelor’s degree or higher, members of Pacific Islanders, Cambodian, Hmong, Lao, and Vietnamese communities only have a bachelor’s degree or higher at rates of 15 percent, 16 percent, 16 percent, 13 percent, and 27 percent, respectively. Levels of poverty and postsecondary educational attainment correlate with these groups’ underrepresentation in STEM employment. Other Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups with similar poverty and educational attainment rates are similarly underrepresented in STEM employment. (9) A 2014 National Center for Education Statistics study found that women and underrepresented