Extending the Florida Pathways 2 Success Partnership to Increase Engagement, Retention, and Success of Low-income Undergraduate and Graduate Students

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 Miami Dade College (MDC), an HSI that primarily awards two-year A.A. degrees, and the University of Florida (UF), a comprehensive research university. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 200 unique students: pre-transfer A.A. life sciences students at MDC; post-transfer B.S.

Microbiology and Cell Science (MCS) majors at UF; or students who are seeking an M.S. in MCS at UF. Although the individual timelines may vary, students who enroll full-time will usually receive scholarships of up to 2-years at each level (i.e., while pursuing associate, bachelor's, and master's degrees). Miami Dade College enrolls a large diverse population of undergraduates, and transfer students are more likely to be from groups historically underrepresented in STEM, including women, veterans, and first-generation college students.

Consequently, this project has the potential to significantly broaden participation in the STEM enterprise and to identify key factors that affect retention and success of low-income transfer students. This project will also increase access by offering online options for scholars pursuing B.S. and M.S. degrees through MCS. Online education further extends opportunities to nontraditional students including adult learners, student parents, and individuals from underserved areas.

By leveraging a statewide network of research facilities and existing online course-based undergraduate research experiences, both in-person and online scholars will be able to participate in faculty-mentored undergraduate research.

The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This project is informed by the lessons learned from a prior S-STEM project at MDC and UF that has awarded over 400 scholarships to students pursuing associate and bachelor's degrees. Project research will use focus groups, student surveys, institutional data, and existing S-STEM data from 2018 to investigate how changes to the FAFSA in 2024 impact eligibility and awards amounts for scholarship recipients.

The research plan will also explore the longer-term impacts of scholarships on transfer, graduation, and persistence in STEM and identify barriers and successful interventions in the A.A. to B.S. transfer process. The project will be assessed by a qualified independent evaluator to ensure progress toward project goals and identify elements of the project that most effectively drive student success.

Results of this project will be made available through presentations at STEM education conferences, informational webinars, and publications in peer-reviewed journals. 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.