Poster #29 - Diversifying the STEM Workforce through Community Colleges: Evidence from Massachusetts’ STEM Starter Academy

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

Community colleges are important and have considerable potential to strengthen the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipeline. They contribute by offering affordable pathways to acquire skills and credentials, as well as by developing human capital to meet local labor market needs. Nevertheless, the longstanding inconsistent STEM achievements across demographic groups hinders equitable opportunities for underrepresented population in the labor market. Many studies focused on promise programs (tuition-free policies) involving community colleges to examine their impact in access and completion, including effects extend to underrepresented groups. However, few casual studies focused on the state-funded STEM support targeted at underrepresented minority students in community colleges. As an initiative of the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DHE) involving all 15 public community colleges in Massachusetts, STEM Starter Academy (SSA) was launched in 2013 “to recruit, ready, retain and graduate a diverse body of students earning STEM certificates and degrees who go on to transfer to a 4-year STEM programs and/or enter the workforce.”

Using Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and College Scorecard Data from 2010 to 2021, this study examined the impact of SSA on the participation or attainment of underrepresented minority students and women students in STEM Majors in community colleges, as well as on long-term outcomes of students after graduation, such as unemployment rate and median earnings. This study utilized the introduction of SSA to conduct a Difference-in-Difference (DiD) study with individual and year fixed effect as the identification approach. Comparison institutions would be chosen in multiple ways, including: 1) All non-SSA 2-year public institutions across the United States. 2) All non-SSA 2-year public institutions in New England Region. 3) All non-SSA 2-year public institutions with similar demographics and financial background.

The preliminary findings show SSA may have increased the proportion of STEM degrees overall, as well as the share of STEM degrees among women’s degrees and URM students’ degrees nationwide. Specifically, the proportion of STEM degrees among degrees earned by women gradually increased and this growth accelerated over time. The overall average post treatment estimation of it is about 1 percentage point, which is statistically significant. Also, STEM proportion among URM students’ degrees shows slight positive trends with 1.7 percentage points. The observed lagged effects in the event study figures may be partially explained by the fact that 56 percent of participants were part-time students since they first entry into SSA. A placebo test on white men students confirmed SSA’s benefits concentrated on its intended populations and diversify the STEM pipeline. In consluison, despite the stability in overall STEM degree counts and their composition relative to other states, Massachusetts’s STEM Starter Academy primarly drive the within-group compositional changes, thereby increasing the proportion of underrepresented students who persist in STEM attainment.

Author

• Hanyun Cui, Boston University
  Presenting Author