Using a Data-driven Approach to Improve Persistence of Academically Talented STEM Students with High Unmet Financial Need

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This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at The College of St. Scholastica. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 30 unique full-time students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, computer science, or mathematics. Two cohorts of academically talented first-year students with low income and high levels of unmet financial need will receive one-year scholarships renewable for up to four years. The goal is to reduce the Scholars’ financial burden and increase their probability of completing a STEM degree. Project activities include a common academic experience for first-year students, a sophomore success seminar, tutoring, and multiple community-building opportunities, such as Family Welcome Weekend, STEM learning communities, and faculty and peer mentoring. This project will study the role of financial aid as well as curricular and co-curricular programming in the success of STEM students, particularly for those with high unmet financial need. Data generated through the comprehensive evaluation plan will inform the College’s financial aid policies and curricular and co-curricular strategies. These results may also guide STEM faculty and administrators at similar institutions across the country who seek to improve STEM undergraduate student persistence. The project will provide STEM programming opportunities to about 200 STEM students (including non-Scholars), about 15% of whom are students of color and 57% are females. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Ten years of institutional data demonstrate that persistence and graduation rates of STEM students declines with increasing levels of unmet financial need, with a sharp decrease as unmet need exceeds $10,000 per year. This project will use a data-driven process to select scholarship recipients who would otherwise be most likely to leave STEM and/or the College due to significant financial need. This project is designed to improve all STEM students’ persistence at key academic transition points by delivering evidence-based curricular and co-curricular support. To measure the success of the project, students’ progress through the degree programs and participation in curricular and co-curricular activities will be monitored, and student interviews and surveys will provide information about what elements of the project encouraged or discouraged them from persisting in STEM. Finally, this project will study the effectiveness of the proposed strategies and share results broadly with STEM researchers and college administrators. As a result, this project and its findings have the potential to advance understanding about the value of a data-driven approach to STEM student retention that could be beneficial to other small colleges with similar academic and financial profiles. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.