United Negro College Fund | UNCF

UNCF's STEM Solution:
Building a Diverse Corporate Workforce

UNCF has years of experience in diversity “match-making” by working with companies seeking a more diverse workforce and providing students with the education they need to get their degrees and start their careers. Now, we’re focusing that experience to help form partnerships with companies that need and want a pipeline of diverse, STEM-educated college graduates.

Our Objective
A diverse, college-educated, STEM-specialized workforce.

A National Challenge
A shortfall between the number of diverse STEM-educated professionals the U.S. economy needs and the number of minority men and women graduating from college with STEM majors.

  • During the next 10 to 15 years, U.S. STEM demand across most industries will outpace supply due to an aging, under-prepared, and diminishing workforce.
            American Institute of Biological Sciences
  • Minorities, particularly African Americans, are vastly underrepresented among STEM graduates.
            Diverse Issues in Higher Education
  • “More than 50 percent of the current science and engineering workforce is approaching retirement. It must be replaced by a larger pool of new talent from a more diverse population.”
            Tapping America’s Potential: The Education for Innovation Initiative

UNCF's STEM Solution
A comprehensive, nationwide project to build and maintain a pipeline of diverse and well-educated STEM professionals, led by the nation’s largest private provider of scholarships to minority students, UNCF—the United Negro College Fund—custom-crafted to meet your company’s requirements.

Our Record
UNCF’s 38 member colleges produce 7,500 graduates each year. Of those, more than 20 percent graduate with STEM majors and an additional 26 percent have business majors.

Today, UNCF manages a portfolio of scholarship and other financial support programs, funded by the nation’s largest corporations and foundations, that produce 8,500 predominantly minority college graduates annually, with a strong specialty in STEM- and business-related education.

  • UNCF’s Gates Millennium Scholars program - a $1.6 billion, 20-year program funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, has produced 1,300 low-income, high-achieving African American, Hispanic, Native American and Asian/Pacific Islander STEM-major graduates from more than 1,000 colleges since its first graduating class in 2004-2005.
  • The UNCF-Merck Science Initiative - a 15-year, $33 million partnership, has to date provided scholarships, fellowships, internships and mentoring support to more than 400 African American science students from more than 166 different colleges and universities.
  • UNCF’s Corporate Scholars Programs (CSP) - a turn-key solution that provides qualified students with scholarships and internship opportunities at CSP-sponsor companies including Marathon Oil, Dell and JPMorganChase.

UNCF knows that in business, as in education, one size never fits all. Each UNCF program is a unique partnership between UNCF and our corporate sponsor. We will work collaboratively with you to create a program that best suits your corporate environment.

For more information on how your company can benefit from this program, contact StemSolution@UNCF.org or Suzanne Jenkins, Director, Foundations at 202-810-0236.