NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Program | 24 511

Opportunity Information: Apply for 24 511

The NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) Program is a National Science Foundation grant opportunity that funds colleges and universities to provide scholarships and structured student-support strategies for low-income students pursuing STEM degrees that align with real workforce demand in the United States. The program traces back to the 1998 American Competitiveness in the Twenty-First Century Act, which linked H-1B visa fee revenues to long-term domestic workforce development. While it originally focused on mathematics, engineering, and computer science, later legislation allowed NSF to broaden eligible disciplines. Today, most fields that NSF typically funds through research programs can be supported under S-STEM, as long as the institution can demonstrate a national or regional need for graduates in those fields and show how the supported degrees connect to strong career outcomes.

At its core, S-STEM is designed to increase the number of academically capable low-income students who complete associate, bachelors, or graduate STEM degrees and move into the American innovation economy. The program is built on the idea that scholarship dollars matter, but money alone does not reliably improve STEM retention and graduation. For that reason, NSF funds institutions not only to provide scholarships, but also to adapt, implement, and study evidence-based curricular and co-curricular approaches that improve recruitment, persistence, transfer pathways where relevant, academic success, career preparation, and on-time degree completion. Projects are expected to be intentional about the population they aim to serve, including providing an analysis of student characteristics and academic needs, rather than treating scholarship support as a generic financial aid add-on.

NSF signals particular interest in proposals that support degrees tied to fields of critical national need, especially areas where the workforce requires talent that can work across disciplinary boundaries. Examples highlighted include quantum computing and quantum science, robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, computer science and computer engineering, and data science or computational science applied to other frontier STEM areas. The burden is on the proposing institution to make a clear, evidence-backed case that the targeted discipline is a critical-need area and that graduates will have access to rewarding employment opportunities. This emphasis reflects a broader program objective: supporting social mobility for low-income students by connecting financial support to degrees with strong labor-market returns.

Eligible students (referred to as S-STEM Scholars) must be domestic low-income students who demonstrate academic ability, talent, or potential, and who also have unmet financial need. Scholars must be enrolled in an eligible STEM degree program at the associate, bachelors, masters, or doctoral level. Eligible degree types include common STEM pathways such as Associate of Arts/Science/Engineering/Applied Science; Bachelor of Arts/Science/Engineering/Applied Science; Master of Arts/Science/Engineering; and doctoral degrees (Ph.D. or comparable). Eligible disciplines are generally those supported by NSF research funding, including applied and technology-oriented fields closely tied to NSF-supported areas (for example, biotechnology, engineering technology, chemical technology, and information technology).

The program also draws clear boundaries around what it will not fund. Clinical degree programs are excluded, including medicine and other health professional degrees such as nursing, veterinary medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, and similar programs that fall outside NSF research funding scope. Business degrees are also excluded, including undergraduate business administration degrees (BBA/BSBA and similar) as well as MBA and doctoral business administration programs. Because disciplinary eligibility can get nuanced, NSF strongly encourages institutions to contact program officers in advance if there is any uncertainty about whether a degree program fits within S-STEM rules.

Only accredited US-based institutions of higher education may submit proposals, including both two-year and four-year institutions such as community colleges, as long as they have a campus located in the United States and submit on behalf of their faculty. Proposals that involve an international branch campus of a US institution are allowed, but they require a specific justification: the proposal must explain the benefits of conducting activities at the international site and why those activities cannot be carried out at the US campus. NSF also particularly encourages proposals from two-year institutions, Minority Serving Institutions, predominantly undergraduate institutions, and public institutions serving urban, suburban, and rural communities, reflecting an interest in broadening participation and reaching students who are often underrepresented or under-resourced in STEM pathways.

S-STEM projects are organized into different tracks with specific expectations for who can lead them as Principal Investigator (PI). For Track 1 (Institutional Capacity Building) and Track 2 (Implementation at a single institution), the PI must either be a faculty member currently teaching in an S-STEM-eligible discipline or an academic administrator who has taught in an eligible discipline within the past two years. NSF expects the PI to have the time and authority to lead the work, and while projects can span multiple departments, one PI must hold overall responsibility for management and results. Participating departments should still be meaningfully involved through co-PIs, senior/key personnel, or scholar-mentor roles.

For Track 3 (Inter-institutional Consortia), the PI eligibility broadens slightly to include not only eligible STEM faculty and recent STEM-teaching administrators, but also non-teaching institutional, educational, or social/behavioral science researchers who study low-income student success. Because Track 3 involves multiple institutions, the PI must be able to manage and coordinate across the consortium, with faculty and staff from the participating institutions filling defined roles as co-PIs, key personnel, or mentors. In addition, NSF offers Collaborative Planning grants meant to help a set of institutions organize and design a future Track 3 consortium proposal. For these planning grants, the PI can be an eligible STEM faculty member, a STEM administrator (department head or above) from one of the consortium institutions, or a relevant non-teaching researcher, and must demonstrate the ability to convene partners and develop a strong proposal within a one-year planning window.

From an administrative standpoint, this opportunity is a discretionary NSF grant (CFDA 47.076) with an expected total of about 90 awards. The listed award ceiling is up to $5,000,000, and the opportunity closing date is March 4, 2025. Overall, the program is best understood as a combined scholarship-and-student-success initiative: it funds direct financial support for low-income STEM students while requiring institutions to build structured, evidence-informed supports and partnerships that measurably improve retention, graduation, and career readiness in fields where the US needs more domestically trained professionals.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Program" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.076.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-12-14.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-03-04. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $5,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 90 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

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