Loretta Gomez fulfilled her lifelong dream of becoming an engineer via a uniquely circuitous route: She moved to the United States from her native Rio de Janeiro to study at Rutgers University. But she discovered that she was ineligible for financial aid, so she switched to a community college, where she became an honors student and paid for her tuition by working at
a restaurant.
Gomez credits her first teacher — her grandfather, an architect — and her teachers at Essex County College, a community college in Newark, New Jersey, with giving her the essential guidance she needed to attain a successful career. She said the math teachers at Essex, especially, “changed my life.
“The professors made me feel welcome and helped me with coursework,” she said. “The hand-holding process that professors at community college gave was amazing — after hours, going over questions that prepared me for exams. I can easily say that without that, I would not have passed all my classes on the first attempt.”
Gomez went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in business administration and management from the New Jersey Institute of Technology. She now works as a senior supply chain manager at Kenvue, maker of such popular consumer brands as Tylenol.
Key STEM role
Like Gomez, thousands of students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, or STEM, are educated at community colleges. The 1,026 community colleges in the United States alone educate 1.6 million STEM students each semester, according to 2023 data compiled in a report by the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University.¹
Those community college STEM students represent more than one-quarter of all U.S. STEM students and more than one-third of the 4.4 million enrollees at community colleges nationwide per semester, said report co-author Clive R. Belfield, Ph.D., an economics professor at Queens College, City University of New York. The report revealed that 22% of U.S. workers who have a community college education, or 6.6 million people, work in a STEM occupation (including health care jobs). And STEM workers earn 12% to 19% more than the average U.S. worker.
In the 2022-2023 academic year, the number of students who earned certificates as engineering technologists or technicians increased slightly, 1.9%, to 23,125, versus the previous year, according to National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s latest data.² And those engineering technologist and similar associate programs are expected to grow as demand increases for those trained in artificial intelligence, automation, cybersecurity, renewable energy, and electronics infrastructure, among other technological disciplines.
“Community colleges will continue to be a big part of STEM education initiatives across the United States, especially as STEM-related careers remain in steady demand,” said Amanda O. Latz, Ed.D., professor of higher education and community college leadership at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana.
Battling misperceptions
Those who intend to take their education one step further and transfer to a four-year university face the perception that community college transfer students do not fare well at such universities. But this is not the case, according to a Community College Research Center report from February 2024.³ “Eighty-one percent of community college transfer students are retained into the second year at the four-year institution, whereas among lateral transfers, this rate is 66%,” the report stated. “The higher retention rate among community college transfers is consistent across all demographic groups. Though not a direct comparison, the bachelor’s completion rate (within four years) of community college transfer students also outpaces that of non-transfer and lateral transfer students (52% versus 37% and 35%, respectively).”
Latz, who co-authored the book, Community College is College: Destigmatizing the Option for High Achieving Learners,⁴ works to combat misperceptions around community colleges and STEM. She uses the hashtag #EndCCStigma on social media posts to validate community college as a solid road to career success. (Read “SWE Enhances Community College Programs” to learn how the Society of Women Engineers is working to support STEM in community colleges.)
Meeting the demand
The increase in the need for STEM graduates of all stripes is fueling growth in community colleges themselves. For example, the City Colleges of Chicago announced in October that it will expand the availability of its associate in engineering science degree this year from one school — Wilbur Wright College — to at least two more colleges within its 12-campus system. And it expects to add two more in 2026. City Colleges operates seven independently accredited neighborhood colleges and five satellite sites.
Engineering enrollment at Wilbur Wright College, on Chicago’s northwest side, has skyrocketed from nine students when it began operating in 2015 to 650 today. Administrators intend to enroll 2,030 engineering students by 2030 — part of the school leadership’s commitment to the goals of the 50K Coalition, an engineering collaborative spearheaded by the Society of Women Engineers and other membership groups to increase the number of Bachelor of Science degrees in engineering awarded annually to women and students from historically underrepresented groups. (Read the news article “50K Coalition Reaches Goal Five Years Early” in SWE Magazine, Spring 2024 issue.)
The Wilbur Wright College program’s success is expected to soar because of a new Engineering Access Alliance between Wilbur Wright and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, or UIUC, Grainger School of Engineering. The partnership lets community college engineering students enroll simultaneously in UIUC courses at the college’s tuition rates, join a “bridge” program to enhance math and chemistry skills, and transfer seamlessly to UIUC to complete their bachelor’s degrees.
“The hand-holding process that professors at community college gave was amazing — after-hours, going over questions that prepared me for exams.”
– Loretta Gomez
Transfer troubles
Only 1.5% of STEM students at community colleges are aiming to transfer to a four-year college, according to the Community College Research Center. But those who do want to continue their studies often find they need assistance in determining how and where to get their course credits to transfer. While 80% of transferring students say they intend to earn a bachelor’s degree, just 16% do so within six years, according to data released in November 2023 by the U.S. Department of Education.⁵
Xueli Wang, Ph.D., Barbara and Glenn Thompson Professor in Educational Leadership at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has published extensive research on community college transfer issues in her book, On My Own: The Challenge and Promise of Building Equitable STEM Transfer Pathways.⁶ Her research shows that the low percentage of students who complete bachelor’s degrees has remained much the same over the past few decades.
She writes: “The root cause is systemic lack of coordination among institutions. In my research, based on what students shared, the particular structure that seemed to be associated with many STEM subjects — including engineering and computer science — allowed little room for error, flexibility, or inspiration.” If transfer-aspiring students miss just one key STEM class, their transfer prospects could be on hold for another full year, Dr. Wang said.
Low-income (11%), older (6%), Black (9%), and Hispanic (13%) students transfer and complete bachelor’s degrees at even lower rates than students overall, according to “Tracking Transfer: Community College and Four-Year Institutional Effectiveness in Broadening Bachelor’s Degree Attainment.”⁷ The report was released in February by the Community College Research Center, the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program, and the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. It suggests several solutions to this problem, including expanding dual enrollment opportunities that enable students to take community college courses during high school and receive credit toward both their high school diploma and their community college degree; promoting associate degree completion prior to transfer, which correlates highly with students attaining their bachelor’s degree; and learning about effective transfer practices from Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions, Hispanic-serving institutions, and other institutions that serve historically underserved groups.
“I strongly believe in human-centered commitment to student welfare. Not just because of enrollment gains but out of a deep commitment to students’ hopes and dreams.”
– Xueli Wang, Ph.D.
A key sticking point for those who wish to transfer and pursue a higher degree is that many four-year colleges and universities have individual rules for which credits will transfer and how many remedial courses must be taken, if any, for a transfer to take place.
Several states are making progress on easing the transfer process systemwide, but students still bear the burden of figuring out the details, said Lauren Schudde, Ph.D., co-author with Huriya Jabbar, Ph.D., of a book published in September that investigates the issue, Discredited: Power, Privilege and Community College Transfer.⁸
“A lot of it is on the students to do the research themselves,” said Dr. Schudde, a sociologist and associate professor of educational leadership and policy at The University of Texas at Austin. “They may go to academic advisors. But in a context where every university can set up its own priorities of which credits can transfer and how, that’s a lot to put on one institutional actor to help every student have perfect information.”
Dr. Schudde said she would prefer to see state legislatures handle the issue so that credit transfers would be uniform. Currently, in many states, some universities let their faculty determine course eligibility, course by course, or a community college may have different transfer agreements with four or five public universities — each with its own course requirements.
Some states — New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Maryland, and Virginia — boast much higher-than-average rates of community college students obtaining bachelor’s degrees, according to the U.S. Department of Education report,⁹ which focuses on students who receive financial aid from Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965.
In 2017, the Illinois Legislature established the Illinois Articulation Initiative, a statewide transfer agreement that more than 100 private and public colleges and universities have accepted as a way of ensuring students can seamlessly transfer to a four-year school. The participating four-year institutions agree to accept a package of general education, core curriculum courses in lieu of their own requirements. Panels of faculty from the two-year and four-year institutions recommend the requirements for courses taken in the first two years of college in popular majors. Malinda Aiello, director of the Illinois Articulation Initiative, said states must dedicate continued funding to these kinds of initiatives and ensure that the panels, often comprising faculty from competing schools, are working toward a common goal. Aiello said the Illinois initiative could provide guidelines for other states to follow, but each state operates its own community college system, so one plan would not fit all.
Making the Most of Mentorship
Regardless of whether women are pursuing a STEM education through a community college, a four-year institution, or a combination of the two, studies show that strong, dedicated mentorship can make a world of difference in their journeys from student to engineer. And that is just as true outside the United States as it is within it.
Recently, the Society of Women Engineers produced three briefs on mentoring women in STEM based on data from Germany and Austria. The briefs focus on the best mentoring practices aimed at increasing the representation of women in STEM studies in these countries. The lessons they present are globally applicable.
The reports are:
The Value of STEM Mentorship: Is It Worth the Investment?
That research highlights the many challenges women encounter in STEM, from underrepresentation and gender biases to limited access to leadership roles and professional development. These challenges are further intensified by broader social and cultural barriers, such as stereotypes and implicit biases, which can create unwelcoming environments in academic and workplace settings. In response, studies increasingly emphasize mentorship as a crucial strategy to support women’s advancement and retention in STEM.
Why STEM Mentoring Matters: It’s More Than Just Guidance – A Systematic Review
This report is a valuable resource to help organizations develop supportive and inclusive programs. It highlights research showing that mentorship is essential for underrepresented groups, that positive faculty-student interactions improve student success, and that structured, research-based programs are crucial for enhancing diversity in STEM.
This module highlights how mentorship offers essential social support, empowering women to overcome sociocultural barriers. By addressing the persistent underrepresentation of women in these fields, STEM mentorship goes beyond guidance — it transforms, this report demonstrates. Mentoring creates a deep sense of belonging, fosters a strong scientific identity, and builds career resilience among mentees.
How STEM Mentorship Programs Can Empower Women in Academics and Early Careers: A Research-Driven Flowchart
This publication uses a process flowchart informed by research to offer guidance on building mentorship programs that actively support the growth and success of women in STEM fields.
This module, grounded in solid research on mentorship’s impact, provides a practical yet flexible approach to designing initiatives that truly reflect the unique backgrounds and experiences of the women they are built to support.
The easy-to-follow flowchart lays out effective mentorship practices, from setting clear goals to nurturing open, reciprocal relationships between mentors and mentees. The emphasis on feedback — through regular check-ins and open conversations — ensures that these programs adapt to participants’ needs.
— Rebeca Patean, SWE Research Analyst
Access these reports and all of SWE’s research on women in STEM at swe.org/research.
In October 2024, Massachusetts launched MassEducate, which allows residents who meet eligibility requirements to attend any of the state’s 15 public community colleges tuition-free, bringing the number of states that offer free community college educations to residents to 35.10 That’s in addition to the state’s MassTransfer program, which lets students easily transfer credits between in-state public higher education institutions. And the California Legislature is working on a standard course numbering system across its community colleges to ease the transfer process.
Schools are also working on their own individual programs to help two-year college students succeed. At California Polytechnic State Institute Humboldt in Arcata, California, for example, the Jeffrey S. Navarro Mentorship program pays peer mentors to build a support community for transfer students. And Case Western Reserve University and Lorain County Community College in Northeast Ohio recently began a partnership to educate a workforce for the burgeoning semiconductor and microelectronics industries there. Case Western offers laboratory space for select community college students in an earn-and-learn program that grants credits toward a bachelor’s degree.
These kinds of programs are essential, as are more targeted financial aid packages, Dr. Wang said in her latest book, Delivering Promise: Equity-Driven Educational Change and Innovation in Community and Technical Colleges.¹¹ Faculty at four-year schools can also help by recognizing community college students’ struggles. They can teach with a “pedagogy of compassion” that recognizes those challenges, she wrote.
“I strongly believe in human-centered commitment to student welfare,” Dr. Wang said. “Not just because of enrollment gains but out of a deep commitment to students’ hopes and dreams. Making the students feel validated so that their curiosity is not killed … is essential.”
Lessons from COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic introduced another wrinkle into transfer success rates, namely, courses offered online, either asynchronously or in live online meetings. Phil Hill & Associates, an education technology consulting firm, analyzed data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS, for the 2021-2022 academic year.¹² The company found nearly 40% of public two-year college students were taking classes entirely online and another 30% were enrolled in some online courses.
This can be problematic because completion rates for online courses can be lower than for in-person classes. A Community College Research Center study of Washington State community and technical college students¹³ found that completion rates for online courses were 5.5 percentage points lower than for in-person courses.
Experts say the expansion of online courses also poses a dilemma for the community colleges. While remote learning can be more convenient for students, colleges must weigh how to fund the fixed costs of infrastructure, such as maintaining classrooms and buildings that may be sitting largely empty; providing Wi-Fi hot spots for students with no or inadequate internet access at home; and paying teachers, IT experts, and other staff to ensure that the online learning works well.
The issue of online accessibility is particularly important. Of the community college students enrolled for credit in 2023, 28% were Hispanic and 12% were Black, according to the American Association of Community Colleges.¹⁴ About one-third, or 32%, were first-generation college students, 23% reported having a disability, and 13% were single parents. These populations can be less likely to have reliable and fast internet access, limiting their access to online courses, experts say.
“I am focusing on the next generation. We are teaching the skills of the future alongside empathy and cultural humility.”
– Rose-Margaret Ekeng-Itua, Ph.D.
College to work
Many STEM students choose to go directly from community college to work, which means the schools may want to offer internships and co-ops similar to four-year schools. Rose-Margaret Ekeng-Itua, Ph.D., founded the Smart Manufacturing Technology Program at Ohlone College in Freemont, California, where she serves as an engineering professor. She developed an apprenticeship program with electric vehicle maker Tesla. Students engage in an 11-week program in which they earn pay and benefits while they learn knowledge and skills applicable to what is known as industry 4.0 — the integration of digital technologies into manufacturing and industrial processes. Industry 4.0 includes the Internet of Things, additive/ 3D printing, and other emerging industrial processes. Upon completion, the students begin full-time work as production associates at Tesla’s Fremont plant — its largest at 5.5 million square feet and 20,000 workers.
Dr. Ekeng-Itua will soon begin a similar program with San Francisco Bay Area semiconductor plants. “I am focusing on the next generation,” she said. “We are teaching the skills of the future alongside empathy and cultural humility.”
Teacher tradeoffs
So, how do community college faculty stay motivated in the face of so much change, challenge, and complexity?
One benefit for many educators is a union pay scale and retirement system that, for public two-year institutions, are primarily based on years of service. Nationwide, more than half — 52% — of faculty at community colleges are union members, according to the National Center for the Study of Collective
Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions.15
In 2023, faculty who collectively bargained at two-year colleges earned $19,000 more than their colleagues who worked in the same states but without union contracts, and they earned $25,000 more than two-year faculty in states without collective bargaining, according to the National Education Association’s 2022-2023 faculty analysis, published in March 2024.¹⁶ Unions also negotiate for family friendly policies around parental leave and subsidized child care. The average salaries for faculty at two-year public colleges differ by state but range from $53,000 in Arkansas to $110,000 in California, according to the data.
Nichole Neal, an engineering professor at Chandler Gilbert Community College in Chandler, Arizona, said she appreciates that the Maricopa County Community College District, which includes her school, has clear procedures for gaining tenure, offers a secure pension for retirees based on years of service, and affords a flexible work life — even though it pays far less than her former corporate career salary.
Neal — who received the 2023 Society of Women Engineers Outstanding Faculty Advisor award — recently completed a five-year process that led her to become tenured last May. The process requires a yearly evaluation of her individual development plans and she must demonstrate how she has improved her teaching, developed professionally, and served the community.
She teaches 12 to 13 sections of courses each year, including one to two in the summer. That enabled her to establish a SWE affiliate and work to increase women’s representation on the Chandler campus. When Neal started teaching, the engineering program had 10% to 11% women students. That figure is now 19%. She also serves the college’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers group as co-advisor.
For her part, Gomez plans to enroll in Rutgers University’s master’s program in supply chain analytics. Yet she remains an advocate for community college and spoke on a panel about the topic during WE24 in Chicago. “I wouldn’t be an engineer without community college,” she said. “There would be fewer women in engineering without it.
“I want to see companies offer one community college student an internship — and give an opportunity to someone who is really, really hungry to succeed,” she said.
And as she looks to her own future, she sees herself teaching one day — in a community college.
SWE Enhances Community College Programs
Before technology, automation, and high-level computing expertise became integral to the U.S. economy, community colleges were stigmatized as open-admission schools of last resort, aimed primarily at students pursuing skilled trades.
But the role of the community college has changed drastically. Many community colleges now work closely with four-year colleges and universities to increase the number of students — including those from low-income or historically underrepresented communities and first-generation students — who transfer to pursue STEM bachelor’s degrees. They also partner with major tech companies such as Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Tesla to develop tailored curricula and earn-while-you-learn programs to meet today’s workforce requirements.
Beth McGinnis-Cavanaugh, professor of engineering and physical sciences at Springfield Technical Community College and recipient of the 2024 SWE Engineering Educator Award, founded SWE’s Community College affinity group, or AG, in 2021 to help fight the pervasive bias against community colleges and their students. The Community College AG, which received a 2023 SWE Silver Mission Award for its work, elevates community colleges and their students within SWE by increasing their participation, highlighting the role of community colleges in achieving STEM diversity; and promoting the value of SWE to community college students.
“The AG believes that SWE has tremendous value to community college women in engineering; in turn, it believes community college women have much to offer SWE,” McGinnis-Cavanaugh said. “It also challenges bias against community colleges — the community college stigma — with messaging and media that highlight the accomplishments of community college alumnae and the importance and impact of community colleges in the STEM landscape.”
In 2023 SWE went a step further, establishing the Community College Affiliate Support and Expansion, or CCASE, program, which offers membership incentives and up to $1,000 in project stipends to active community college affiliates to conduct professional development and outreach activities. CCASE is aimed at encouraging more women in community colleges, particularly those from historically underrepresented groups and those facing financial challenges, to pursue a STEM degree. CCASE can also help new SWE faculty advisors with discounted professional memberships.
Since February 2023, SWE gained 12 new community college affiliates and had three reactivated affiliates. Since summer 2023, the Community college AG added 120 new members, a roughly 50% jump. And since 2023, CCASE has awarded more than $12,000 in project stipends.
Programs such as CCASE are vital in boosting the SWE Community College AG’s goals, said the AG’s co-lead Ines Figueiras, associate professor at Essex County College’s Division of Mathematics, Engineering Technologies, and Computer Sciences in Newark, New Jersey.
Those goals, she noted, include ensuring that community college students have opportunities for networking, internships, and job shadowing in industry, and that students and faculty get financial support to attend SWE events and conferences. —SG
Want to know more? For more information on the Community College AG, visit
https://affinitygroups.swe.org/community-colleges/. For more information on CCASE, visit https://swe.org/research/2023/ccase-program/.
Footnotes
- “How Important Are Community Colleges in Supporting STEM?” Community College Research Center, November 2023.
- “3 charts unpacking the latest credential completion data,” Education Dive, April 16, 2004.
- “Tracking Transfer: Four-Year Institutional Effectiveness in Broadening Bachelor’s Degree Attainment,” Community College Research Center, December 2023.
- Community College is College: Destigmatizing the Option for High Achieving Learners, by M. Beth Borst, Amanda O. Latz, Samantha Lopez, Sonina Hernández Mikkelsen, Suahil R. Housholder, and Brenda Geib-Swanson. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, October 2024.
- “New Measures of Postsecondary Education Transfer Performance: Transfer-out rates for community colleges, transfer student graduation rates at four-year colleges, and the institutional dyads contributing to transfer student success,” Homeroom, U.S. Department of Education, November 9, 2023.
- On My Own: The Challenge and Promise of Building Equitable STEM Transfer Pathways.” Xueli Wang, Ph.D., Harvard Education Press, April 21, 2020.
- “Tracking Transfer: Four-Year Institutional Effectiveness in Broadening Bachelor’s Degree Attainment,” Community College Research Center, December, 2023.
- Discredited: Power, Privilege And Community College Transfer, Lauren Schudde, Ph.D., and Huriya Jabbar, Ph.D, Harvard Education Press, September 2024.
- “New Measures of Postsecondary Education Transfer Performance: Transfer-out rates for community colleges, transfer student graduation rates at four-year colleges, and the institutional dyads contributing to transfer student success,” Homeroom, U.S. Department of Education, November 9, 2023.
- “Which States Offer Tuition-Free Community College?” Cece Gilmore, Scholarships360.org, November 12, 2024.
- Delivering Promise: Equity-Driven Educational Change and Innovation in Community and Technical Colleges. Xueli Wang, Ph.D., Harvard Education Press, April 2024.
- “2021-22 IPEDS Data: Profile of Late-Pandemic 12-Month Enrollments,” On EdTech, October 2, 2023.
- “Community College FAQs,” Community College Research Center, accessed 12/9/2024.
- “Fast Facts 2024,” American Association of Community Colleges, 2024.
- “About One in Four Faculty Members Are Unionized, Study Finds,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 29, 2024.
- “Faculty Salary Analysis 2022-2023,” National Education Administration, March 2024.
