Meeting the STEM Workforce Challenge: Leveraging Higher Education's Untapped Potential to Prepare Tomorrow's STEM Workforce. BHEF Policy Brief

Innovations in science and engineering have driven economic growth in the United States over the last five decades. More recently, technology has risen to become a defining driver of productivity in business and industry. In that context, college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines provide critical talent that fuels America's competitive ability. Unfortunately, the United States is not producing enough STEM specialists, STEM teachers, or STEM-literate citizens to sufficiently drive innovation, spur economic growth, and produce engaged, informed leaders and citizens. New strategies, tactics, and tools are necessary to address the complex STEM workforce demand. In particular, the nation needs new forms of collaboration among business and industry, higher education, and government to transform STEM higher education and boost the number of scientists, mathematicians, and engineers graduating from colleges and universities. The Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) has launched the STEM Higher Education and Workforce Project to address these challenges and align higher education with national and regional STEM workforce needs. This effort is predicated on a fundamental assumption that strong skills in the STEM fields will continue to be vital drivers of American innovation and competitiveness, and that it is therefore necessary to invest the nation's workforce with those skills, both in the numbers and competencies necessary to fully meet the demands of the 21st century. (Contains 3 figures and 8 endnotes.)