Business leaders met with Sr. White House Advisor Ivanka Trump today in Detroit to pledge an additional $300 million in funding to broaden K-12 access to computer science education.
Ivanka Trump to join MI leaders in Detroit to roll out STEM funding
The forum comes a day after President Donald Trump directed his education secretary Betsy DeVos to prioritize science and technology education and spend at least $200 million annually on competitive grants for STEM, science, technology, engineering and math, programs.
Tech giants such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce have each pledged $50 million toward the educational initiative.
General Motors has offered $10 million and a contribution from Quicken Loans will ensure 15,000 students in Detroit will get a computer science education.
“It’s going to take both public and private efforts to bridge this technology gap in our country,” said Quicken Loans Founder Dan Gilbert.
The nearly dozen companies have raised a total of $300 million for students throughout the country.
“This is an enormous step to make sure grant money is available so schools across the entire country can apply and incorporate computer sciences into their classrooms,” said Ivanka Trump during a panel discussion today.
Today's announcement in Detroit brings the contributions for STEM and computer science grants to $500 million.
"Detroit is perfect place for that (the announcement) because they can see we are muscles and brains," said Gilbert.
Currently, there are more than 6 million unfilled jobs -- 500 million in computers -- that can’t be filled because they don’t have the qualified workforce, said Sr. White House officials.
“We still have a lot of people out there who don’t have jobs and we have a lot of jobs that don’t have people -- and that’s a shame,” said Gilbert.
Donald Trump's order asks DeVos to prioritize high-quality STEM education along with computer science education under an existing grant program that schools and districts have access to.
“We’re looking forward to see a tremendous amount of innovation throughout the states,” said Ivanka.
