For Emely Gomez, a 12th-grade student at Newark’s Science Park High School, the prospect of achieving a college-level STEM education became a reality when she was offered the opportunity to join 34 other Newark high schoolers as the first participants of New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Math Success Initiative (MSI). The seven-week math-intensive program, launched in 2019 by NJIT, the City of Newark and Newark Public Schools, has been academically preparing and giving hundreds of local city residents like Gomez a firm pathway toward a STEM degree at the university, which they may not have had otherwise.

“I’m just really grateful that I was able to meet people that genuinely believe in me,” Gomez said, collecting her certificate at the university’s MSI commencement ceremony alongside fellow graduates Tyrese Mills from Shabazz High School and Kiara Starr from Central High School. Roughly $1 million per year supports the enrollment and pursuits of these and other program cohorts in a variety of tech-driven fields at NJIT.

“We know the people who were hurt the most in this pandemic are low-income families, and yet those are the future students for our universities,” said Bloom.

The program is among NJIT’s latest efforts to address a critical need for expanding STEM education opportunities, a need Newark shares with much of the country. While NJIT already educates approximately one-third of the state’s engineers, demand for high-skilled STEM professionals continues to climb. About 33% of the U.S. economy is supported by science, technology, engineering and mathematics jobs, and the expected growth of the workforce in the years ahead could see that number rise, with nearly 800,000 new STEM occupations projected through 2029, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Diversity in the STEM workforce, however, is one vital area where the numbers still fall short.

Over 60% of all engineering degrees and 24% of all computing degrees awarded to underrepresented minority students by New Jersey public institutions are earned by NJIT students. NJIT President Joel S. Bloom says it’s not nearly enough.

“NJIT has played an important role in launching underrepresented minorities and women in STEM professions, but for whatever we’ve done we must increase our efforts,” said Bloom, speaking to hundreds of New Jersey’s education leaders during a virtual STEM School Leadership Forum this past October. “Look at the data. … How can a country driven by technology only have 13% of the engineering profession represented by women today?”

The data further illustrates challenges that persist in bridging diversity gaps and preparing a representative workforce that can thrive within and lead an economy driven by technological innovation. African Americans make up more than 13% of the U.S. population, but only 5-7% of engineering and computer science fields. Hispanics comprise roughly 16% of the U.S. workforce but only 7% of all STEM workers (PEW Research).

Meanwhile, the current pandemic has highlighted barriers to attaining lucrative STEM careers, which typically command about two-thirds more salary than non-STEM jobs (PEW). It is particularly affecting pre-college learners in STEM deserts across the country, where school districts lack the courses, teachers, labs and digital resources to adequately prepare learners. An analysis by Pew Research Center in April found that 59% of parents with low incomes expected digital obstacles for their children, such as getting access to Wi-Fi and computers, while adapting to learning remotely during the pandemic.

“We know the people who were hurt the most in this pandemic are low-income families, and yet those are the future students for our universities,” said Bloom.

At the university level, additional challenges persist, namely cost. NJIT and other institutions that train New Jersey’s STEM workforce have been hard-pressed to expand enrollment and programs like MSI because of the additional costs associated with providing STEM education versus educating a non-STEM student, something that states like New Jersey do not account for in their annual base appropriation to public colleges and universities at present.

Studies by the Center for STEM Education and Innovation as well as the National Bureau of Economic Research have found that, in comparison to degree programs such as English, history, psychology and economics, the costs of offering engineering programs are more than 100% greater. The Center for STEM Education and Innovation found that engineering programs are over 60% more costly to deliver than the average degree program. These higher costs are driven by the need to maintain cutting-edge research facilities and infrastructure, as well as the salaries necessary to attract faculty who have lucrative options in the private sector and earn 30% more than their non-STEM counterparts.

Education leaders including Bloom have proposed that their states, like at least a dozen already do, help bridge the gap by considering the number of degrees awarded to students in strictly defined STEM disciplines as part of the calculus for both the annual base appropriation to colleges and universities and the Outcomes Based Allocation (OBA) funding formula for distributing new aid. Without such consideration for the STEM cost factor, necessary opportunities for diverse STEM talent of the future may not be there.

“If New Jersey is to succeed in developing the workforce necessary to support a knowledge, innovation and technology economy, we must provide resources that support students in the STEM disciplines and the colleges and universities educating those students,” said Bloom. “If we do not recognize the importance of investing in the STEM workforce that will be the foundation of our future economic strength, we risk long-term negative consequences and will deprive students from low-income and underrepresented groups of opportunities to pursue careers in high-income and high-demand fields.”