A multi-institutional partnership supporting timely associate and bachelor's degree completion in science and mathematics

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 County College of Morris, Lehigh Carbon Community College, Luzerne County Community College, Northampton Community College, and East Stroudsburg University. This project is a partnership between 4 regional community colleges and East Stroudsburg University, a member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

Over its 5-year duration, the project will fund scholarships to 135 unique full-time and part-time students who are pursuing associate and bachelor’s degrees in 11 STEM fields including biology, biochemistry, biotechnology, chemical biotechnology, chemistry, computer science, computer security, environmental science, marine science, mathematics, and physics. Scholars will receive two-year scholarships to attend a partner community college and, post-transfer, an additional two years of scholarship support to attend East Stroudsburg University.

The central tenet of the project is scholar success; addressing student needs is the priority. The project provides a model program to foster change and broaden student success through support including scholarships, proactive developmental advocacy holistic advising, cohort activities, peer mentoring and tutoring, and mentor mediated online education that fosters development of attitudes and behaviors associated with academic success.

The team will identify and understand success predictors that affect student retention and degree completion.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Through project programing and intervention greater than 90% of project scholars will earn an associate degree and bachelor’s degree with a minimum 2.8 GPA. The project will reduce the transfer deficit (prerequisite courses missing at the time of transfer from community college to a 4-year institution), shortening the time to graduation and thus reducing student debt.

The project will also increase students from underrepresented populations by enacting proven methods that focus on the student needs and support diverse populations. The project will create tested, sharable, scalable, and sustainable products that will ensure student success at the participating institutions and can be applied elsewhere. A faculty development advising training program among all partner institutions and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will be established and widely shared throughout the academic community and the nation.

The project will establish how program practices result in improvements in scholar retention, in GPA, and in time to graduation. 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.