Corporations and foundations filling the STEM funding gap

As the economic crisis of the past several years lingers, school systems are facing severe budget challenges, and public dollars for education are dwindling in many cities and towns all over the nation.  This lack of funding hits children from low-income communities especially hard as they may also be losing access to afterschool programs, which have emerged as a place where children from diverse backgrounds can engage in innovative, hands-on STEM learning.  Thankfully, many corporations and foundations are stepping in to fill the critical funding gap. They are helping to raise awareness of the importance of STEM in afterschool, and provide students with new, exciting opportunities to pursue STEM education in preparation for college and/or STEM jobs.

The Afterschool Alliance would like to recognize the generosity and foresight of several corporations who have recently bolstered STEM-based afterschool education by investing in a number of afterschool programs.

• Last month the Symantec Foundation provided $250,000 in grant funding to Boys & Girls Clubs of America chapters across the United States to provide online content for Club teenagers, new training opportunities for Club professionals, and various STEM-focused educational programs.
• Citizen Schools recently received $650,000 from Cisco to help middle school students across 31 schools in seven different states prepare for high school, college and the professional world. Cisco’s investment will allow Citizen Schools to provide new avenues of STEM education so that students will not only be prepared for, but passionate about pursuing careers in STEM.
• The Motorola Solutions Foundation recently announced more than $4 million in funding through its Innovation Generation Grant Program. More than 100 different organizations across the country will benefit from this funding to help provide STEM-based resources to teachers and STEM education programs to students, particularly girls and underrepresented minorities.
• Thanks to the Northrop Grumman Corporation, 12 high school students from the Baltimore and Annapolis areas will be attending college this fall with a combined total of $240,000 in engineering scholarships. These students were involved in the High School Involvement Partnership, a mentoring, internship and scholarship program sponsored by Northrop Grumman and focused on STEM-based education for future careers in STEM.

Thanks to the valuable investments of these corporate partners, afterschool programs across the nation are more able to promote the importance or STEM-based career opportunities, and create new and innovative avenues for STEM-based education that otherwise may not have existed.