The Development and Impact of the Purdue Rising Scholars Program

Many intelligent lower socioeconomic status high school students correctly view STEM majors as a way out of poverty, but the challenges to ultimate success are plentiful. This study serves as a follow-up to The Purdue Rising Scholars Experience: Exploring Student Success and focuses on the building blocks utilized to develop the initiative, which was offered to undergraduate students enrolled at Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus between 2017 and 2024. It also analyzes graduation data and the overall lessons learned from the remarkably successful seven-year experience. The Rising Scholars program offered these students a pathway through college that brought them into contact with a network of professional mentors, including university professors, staff, and graduate students. The Development and Impact of the Purdue Rising Scholars Program also provides documentation of the researchers’ base concepts employed during the development of the initiative, data related to the program’s outcomes, and takeaways from the larger study. This book is well-aligned to be included in graduate-level engineering education mentoring seminar courses.