Executive summary. Building Bridges to Success: Regional Business-Higher Education Partnerships to Grow and Diversify the STEM Workforce
This report gives demonstrates the power of business-higher education partnerships to create new kinds of STEM pathways that provide educational opportunity and economic mobility for underrepresented students.
With funding from the National Science Foundation in 2014, BHEF launched a five-year project to demonstrate the efficacy of regional ecosystems of community colleges, four-year higher education institutions, and STEM-driven business in facilitating the retention and persistence of students in STEM fields. Through this work, BHEF developed evidence-based models for implementing strategic and sustainable engagement by business with higher education to increase the persistence of STEM students, particularly women and underrepresented minorities. The project identified the transfer of students from two-year to four-year institutions as a key juncture that, if addressed, could significantly increase both the diversity and overall STEM degree attainment at the baccalaureate level.
Learn more about BHEF's theory of action, the five project sites that led this work on the ground, and the Undergraduate STEM Interventions with Industry Consortium that fueled the community learning.