Incentivizing STEM participation: Evidence from the SMART Grant Program

Abstract

The U.S. National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grant program provided up to $8000 to high-achieving, low-income undergraduates majoring in STEM fields. We evaluate the effects of this financial incentive on college graduates' major fields and subsequent STEM workforce retention using nationally-representative survey data and a difference-in-differences quasi-experimental approach. The SMART Grant program significantly increased the probability that first-generation college graduates majored in STEM, by about 7 percentage points. However, this increase is almost entirely offset by affected STEM graduates' significantly lower STEM workforce retention. These program effects also appear to be concentrated among students whose parents had some college experience rather than those who were first in their families to attend college.