WRT-1042: Policy Innovations to Enhance the STEM Talent Pipeline

This report summarizes the first-year progress in a two-year study of policy innovations to enhance the STEM talent pipeline. significant progress is reported across several tasks and themes. Four economic models of the higher education ecosystem were developed to represent financial drivers of the overall education system in terms of institutional economics, investments in STEM retention, investments in developing a skilled technical workforce, and the behavioral economics of students’ decisions. The nature of student flow was addressed using available national longitudinal data sets to develop a systems dynamics model of student flow, including an assessment of student flow into the skilled technical workforce in five states. In the process, several academic institutions were addressed in detail. This report concludes with an outline of plans to address engaging and nurturing promising high school students, as well as plans to model the impacts of policy instruments on the overall talent pipeline.