NASA Grants Millions for Engineering, STEM Efforts at Minority-Serving Colleges

By ShaCamree Gowdy Published: July 28, 2021

NASA Grants Millions for Engineering, STEM Efforts at Minority-Serving Colleges

FILE - In this May 30, 2020, file photo, a SpaceX Falcon 9, with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken in the Dragon crew capsule, lifts off from Pad 39-A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. For the first time in nearly a decade, astronauts blasted towards orbit aboard an American rocket from American soil, a first for a private company. (AP Photo/John Raoux, File)

By: ShaCamree Gowdy

NASA has picked six minority-serving universities to receive up to $1.2 million in funding each to go toward their engineering and STEM efforts.

The MUREP Inclusion Across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science, or INCLUDES, award will distribute the funds over a three-year period to assist in developing proposals for how the colleges can use NASA funding to improve support for underrepresented communities.

“Creating a future for humanity in the stars and continuing to improve life on Earth are tasks NASA can only achieve by involving all of humanity,” was stated per a NASA news release announcing the awards.

The selected institutions are Alabama State University, Florida A&M University, J.F. Drake State Technical College, Navajo Technical College, Texas A&M Kingsville and University of Massachusetts in Boston.

Michelle Foster, the main investigator for Alabama State University’s grant, believes it is critical to expand the number of minority students pursuing STEM-related degrees and careers not just in Alabama, but nationwide.

“For minority students, the numbers speak for themselves. Data tells us that only 2% nationwide of minority students have degrees in or are employed in engineering and physics,” she said in a statement.

For more information on the grants and detail information on each schools’ project, visit NASA.gov.