Gateway to success: combining financial, academic and psychosocial supports to promote academic success of low-income STEM majors

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 Marist College. Marist College is a comprehensive, independent institution that emphasizes the liberal arts. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund 23 unique full-time students pursuing undergraduate degrees in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and environmental science.

First year students will receive up to four years of scholarship support. The project aims to improve retention and graduation rates in STEM fields by combining financial, academic, and co-curricular support structures. Support activities include holistic academic advising, an academic cohort model, career planning, and science-oriented programming in designated residence hall communities.

Supplemental peer instruction in introductory or ‘gateway’ science courses aims to improve academic performance, as gateway courses often present barriers to persistence in STEM fields. The number of low-income college students is increasing nationally; therefore, increasing the success in STEM majors has the potential to broaden entry into STEM fields.

This project aims to add to body of research on how the roles of financial support, mentoring, career advising, and supplemental instruction in gateway courses affect the retention and graduation of low-income students.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion among low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. In particular, there are four specific aims: 1) reduce financial need in order to allow students to focus on academic success, 2) improve performance in gateway STEM courses, 3) provide strong mentoring and career planning support, and 4) foster a sense of belonging to both the campus and community while adding to the professional formation of students’ science identities.

Socioeconomic factors, performance in gateway courses, and psychosocial factors are known to affect persistence of low-income students. In the context of a private comprehensive institution, less is known about how targeted interventions can improve the experience of low-income students and their academic persistence. By providing financial support through scholarships and academic support through robust programming, it is expected students will experience academic success and higher rates of graduation.

Participation in the program is expected to increase students' academic persistence and decrease students' withdrawal from gateway courses; it also aims to increase retention rates overall. This project has the potential to advance understanding of the programmatic aspects that are most important for retaining low-income students in STEM. The project will be evaluated with quantitative and qualitative data from institutional data, grade reports, and surveys which will be triangulated with qualitative data from focus groups and interviews.

The results of the project will be made available via conference presentations, publications, and professional development workshops. 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.