Veterans Services of America (VSA) and The National Disabled Veteran Business Council is proud to announce the pre-launch of our new STEM2Veterans program.

The need for high quality Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education has been touted by numerous reports that link our Nation’s future economic success and security to a highly skilled STEM workforce.

Post-9/11 Veterans include a diverse and qualified pool of future talent for the nation’s engineering and science employers. Ushering these Veterans into technical fields as work-force ready engineers and scientists will require a community of partnerships among the Veterans themselves, the nation’s educational institutions, technology firms, the government’s technical and scientific organizations, corporate employer groups and others.

Bottom line is that the increasing amount of jobs that are becoming available are in the Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) fields of endeavor and, quite simply, there are not enough qualified applicants within the United States to fill these jobs.

The STEM2Veterans program will help forge and align these partnerships and engage participation of post-9/11 Veterans to use the new Post 9/11 Educational Benefits to define STEM education opportunities and ultimately STEM related career paths for many of the qualified and deserving Veterans and/or their families.

The vast majority of those who serve in the enlisted ranks of the nation’s armed services are high school graduates with strong cognitive aptitudes. Most members of the officer corps hold four-year or advanced college degrees. Many of those who serve today are interested in technical careers and equipped to succeed in them. They have experience managing technical systems and solving complex problems. They know how to work in teams and how to lead.

Innovation Scorecard
Country Innovation Profiles
January 2012
Prepared for General Electric by the Milken Institute
Download the full report here (pdf, 1.6mb)

United States

STEM Education (Below Average):
The United States falls just slightly into the third quartile in global rankings for science, technology, engineering and math education. Although this is not far behind the U.K. and Germany, it is a dramatic departure for a nation that was once regarded as the world's education leader for decades. A significant 51 percent of U.S. respondents in the GE survey feel that the government has not been successful in improving education. The comparative decline of the US in this field has attracted the attention of policymakers, leading to passage of the American COMPETES Act in 2007. Additional efforts to bolster STEM learning have come through the National Science Foundation and NASA, although the comparative decline of NASA is often cited as a reason for the decline in popularity of STEM in the general populace.