Investigating the Impact of Engineering Graduate Student Financial Literacy on URP Entering and Staying in the Engineering Workforce.

New Mexico State University, Las Cruces NM

Investigators

Abstract

Student loan debt is frequently discussed as a creating a financial burden to underrepresented minority students (URM) leading to the lack of completing degrees at the undergraduate and graduate levels in engineering. This research project investigates a framework that describes students? perceptions about financial options for graduate school and how these options impact decisions to enter graduate school and the engineering workforce. The focus of this project is to leverage relationships with select Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) and Predominately White Institutions (PWI) in the Midwest that were established from the implementation of an earlier graduate recruitment program. The data collected from students of the participating universities includes decisions related to borrowing practices of student loans, accumulation of debt, decisions that impact career decisions related to debt, along with investigating students? perceptions and knowledge of financial options available related to their future as engineering graduate students. In addition, the researchers will investigate students, perceptions, knowledge and usage of financial options taken while they are an engineering graduate student and how these choices impact their decisions during graduate school. A mixed methods approach will be employed using quantitative and qualitative data to explore these issues from various perspectives. The expected outcomes from the analysis and the methods that are most effective at increasing the recruitment, retention and graduation of underrepresented minorities students will be disseminated through workshops and journals. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.