Enhancing a Transfer Pathway to Improve STEM Student Success

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 Ohio State University at Newark. Ohio State Newark is a small, regional, diverse, affordable, mainly commuter, open-access entry point for students seeking a degree at The Ohio State University.

Over its four-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 45 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in any of the almost 40 available S-STEM eligible disciplines offered at Ohio State. Three cohorts of 15 first-year students will receive up to two years of scholarship funding, STEM enrichment activities, and supportive services on the Newark campus, then transition to the Columbus campus for degree completion.

Project activities and services include: a short immersive research retreat at an active field station to launch each cohort; an academic year learning community with extra- and co-curricular opportunities in diverse STEM fields; and optional summer internships providing professional and career experiences. Scholarships and cohort activities will be scaffolded with individualized faculty mentoring, early and ongoing research experiences, direct interaction with academic scientists, industry scientists, and engineers, and multiple academic, social, and personal support services to keep scholars on track for campus transition and degree completion.

The intellectual merit of this project is the generation of new knowledge about how student support activities affect student success in making a transition to a four-year program. Project results will be published and presented to national/international interest groups. Ohio State Newark will become an important pathway for a diverse demographic of low-income students to complete science, technology, engineering, or mathematics degrees at an R1 university they may previously have thought was beyond their reach.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specific aims are to: recruit and retain eligible students; provide these students with academic and other support; facilitate transition to Ohio State Columbus campus eligible STEM departments; and disseminate lessons learned.

The project design adapts successful evidence-based practices from traditional college settings to the environment of regional and community colleges. Investigations will examine efficacy of recruitment messaging, impact of performance-based STEM-focused financial aid on entry and retention, and patterns of success across gender, income level, race/ethnicity, and first-generation college student status.

Project-level expected outcomes include successful transition from students’ first to second year, successful transition between campuses for their third year, and degree completion. Broader impacts include a better understanding of the campus-transition experience for students in STEM majors and adoption of successful program components by other public-university regional campuses to reduce attrition of similar students nationwide.

Project evaluation will include focus groups, interviews, and analyses of student data. Evaluation results will be disseminated nationally and regionally through academic conferences, journals, higher-education organizations, and campus publications and events to reach more than 5000 faculty of Ohio State’s six campuses. 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.