Syracuse Say Yes to Education created a $610,000 scholarship for students pursuing science, technology, engineering or math degrees by combining separate donations.

The funding for the scholarship comes from donations from multiple STEM companies. The scholarships were announced at the second Say Yes at the Dome Day. Say Yes should be applauded for making the scholarships available, but the newly created scholarship puts a spotlight on a pitfall in American education.

Students in the United States lag behind comparable nations in the STEM fields. This was first highlighted when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. In response, the United States amped up funding and education in STEM fields. The nation is still behind other nations.

The STEM fields keep certain jobs in the United States and helps create new jobs for people not within STEM fields. If people working in these fields create and innovate new technologies, they’ll need people from all fields to execute and market their innovations.

The Syracuse Say Yes program helps provide tuition for students in the program who have been accepted to certain universities that have partnered with Say Yes, including Syracuse University.

This specific STEM scholarship was created because of the number of science and technology industry companies in the area. But most scholarships funded by Say Yes are not for a specific academic area.

The scholarship donation creates an incentive — and opportunity — for students to study in the STEM field, an area in which the United States remains consistently behind. The scholarship can help underprivileged students attend universities and, at the same time, help level the STEM playing field for the United States.

Published on March 5, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact: opinion@dailyorange.com