Regression analysis has provided important evidence: a famous study of mortgage applications by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, for instance, showed that loan denial rates for blacks were eight percentage points higher than those for whites, once a large number of factors that affected the risk of default were included.

ECONOMIST: Race, sex and the dismal science | The

And using criteria of the security-focused education group SANS to gauge offline applications, the study found that 18% of government apps passed, compared with 28% of finance industry apps and 34% of commercial software.

FORBES: Study Confirms The Government Produces The Buggiest Software

By 2007 that had fallen to just 10, 600, and although it's recovered a little to 13, 600 last year, that's at a time in major growth in overall applications, so the percentage of students looking to study the subject has fallen from 5% to 3%.

BBC: Coding - the new Latin

But one recent study shows that a majority of adoption agencies in the U.S. now accepts applications from gays.

NPR: Gay Adoption of Black Children Raises Concerns