Intel Encourages Black Students To Stick With STEM

Intel wants to encourage Black students to stick with STEM through this HBCU grant

Intel is initiating a grant worth $4.5 million dollars for HBCUs over the next three years in order to encourage African American interest in STEM.

According to Black Enterprise, the HBCU Grant Program will divvy up $3.9 million to fund two-year scholarships and other academic opportunities, while the remaining $600,000 will go toward Intel-hosted workshops to assist students on their transition to the tech workforce.

The participating schools include Florida A&M University, Howard University, Morgan State University, North Carolina A&T State University, Prairie View A&M University and Tuskegee University.

According to the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES), black students are more likely than students of other races to quit with their STEM major within their first year of college, which is why black students only represent 11 percent of STEM bachelor’s degrees.

Intel, of course, wants to up that number and retain the growth.

“Shaping a more diverse technology industry requires that we rethink our sources of talent and broaden our recruiting pipeline to access available diverse talent,“ Barbara Whye, Intel’s VP of human resources and chief diversity and inclusion officer, wrote in the company’s official blog announcement.

Intel isn’t new to this, it’s true to this.

Since 2015, as part of its $300 million Diversity in Technology initiative, Intel set a goal to boast full company representation of women and underrepresented minorities by 2020. What does “full representation” mean? According to a statement by Intel, this: “Intel is committed to fostering a culture where our employees can bring their full experiences to their work—this is how we achieve innovation and how we drive our business forward.”