Ensuring that all students who want to pursue degrees and careers in science can do so is an important goal of a number of undergraduate STEM equity programs throughout the United States. Many of these programs, which promote diversity and the importance of diversity in science, directly address the 2012 PCAST report, which notes that “1 million additional STEM Professionals will be needed within the next decade” and “women and members of minority groups now constitute approximately 70% of college students, but earn only 45 percent of STEM degrees.” The PCAST report also indicates that these students “leave STEM majors at higher rates than others and offer an expanding pool of untapped talent.” Many of these programs recognize that it is important to provide students with a variety of support: financial, mentoring, research-based instruction, cohort development, and specific activities tailored to target population strengths and needs.
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Supported by the National Science Foundation S-STEM program, DUE # 1356523
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Many Chicago State students have a number of intersectional ways in which they are underrepresented in physics, including but not limited to: race, gender, socioeconomic status, and first-generation college student status.
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“Four other schools…had four-year graduation rates of 20 percent or lower — a performance that has drawn sharp criticism from state education leaders and others. Now they’re under intense pressure to improve. Their funding will depend on it. Starting in 2013, the Board of Governors, which oversees Florida’s public universities, will start awarding tuition increases based on how well they do in areas such as graduating students, a key measure of a school’s effectiveness.” See “Florida Universities Under Pressure to Improve Graduation Rates,”
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