Every year, millions of students nationwide participate in afterschool and summer programs that help them gain skills in science, technology, engineering, and math — also known as STEM. But even as student interest surges and the programs continue to expand, financial and transportation barriers have boxed many young people out of these pivotal learning opportunities, particularly students from low-income families, a new report reveals.

From 2014 to early 2020, just before the pandemic, the U.S. saw a 1.3 million-student drop in afterschool STEM participation, falling from 7 million learners to 5.7 million, according to the paper, which was published by the nonprofit organization Afterschool Alliance.

Those drops were starkest among poorer students, who were already underrepresented in STEM fields. In that timespan, the number of young people from low-income households participating in afterschool programs, STEM or otherwise, fell from 4.6 million to 2.7 million — meaning 79 percent of afterschool attrition came from less wealthy families despite such students making up only 38 percent of all participants in 2020.

“We left those students behind,” said Nikole Collins-Puri, CEO of the California-based nonprofit Techbridge Girls.

Simultaneously, however, the share of afterschool programs offering STEM opportunities grew. Nearly 3 in 4 young people learning outside of school hours have science and technology programming available to them. That’s up four percentage points from 69 percent in 2014.

“The inequities are troubling and must not continue,” said Jodi Grant, Afterschool Alliance’s executive director, in a press release. “We need to increase access to afterschool overall, because even though parents report a greater percentage of programs are providing STEM, fewer children are in afterschool programs today than in years past.”

Read the full article about students left behind in afterschool programs by Asher Lehrer-Small at The 74.