Dustin Grote
Weber State University, UT·Education Research
Many high-achieving engineering students from low-income families face obstacles to finishing a degree. These students may start at a four-year college or transfer in from a community college.
- Fields
Education Research
Social Science
Engineering
- Topics
engineering education
low-income students
student retention
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Examine how intra- and inter-institutional partnerships are designed and sustained to support low-income engineering students, through a multiple case study of S-STEM program leaders and their organizational partners.
- Link new data on partnership models with existing S-STEM student success data and archival datasets to identify which collaboration processes are associated with better retention and graduation.
- Support and mentor 40 accelerator grant teams across four cohorts as they study how well their own campus partnership designs, processes and structures work.
- Convene summer institutes where partner organizations share data and build campus-specific action plans, and produce research-to-practice briefs for the S-STEM community.
More about the research
This project treats those obstacles as problems in how schools organize their support, rather than as problems with the students themselves. The central question is how partnerships within and between colleges can be designed, built and kept running so they support these students reliably.
Why it matters
The work could help colleges and community colleges spend limited support money more wisely. It aims to raise degree completion among low-income engineering students, including those transferring from community colleges. The results could also help these students find cheaper paths to a bachelor's degree.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
David Knight
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, VA·Education Research
Answer how partnerships within and between institutions can be designed, built and sustained to support low-income engineering students, using a multiple case study of S-STEM program leaders and their organizational partners.
Jane Lehr
California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, CA·Education Research
Test whether scholarship program activities grow transfer students' social networks, resilience, confidence and sense of belonging, using social network analysis, surveys and qualitative interviews.
Jingru Benner
Western New England University, MA·Education Research
Provide four-year scholarships to two cohorts of low-income, high-achieving mechanical engineering students and track their retention and graduation.
The school
Weber State University: 1 labs on PI Pages.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.