Building open source opportunities for students in tech

The National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education awarded Green River College $500,000 on October 15, 2026, under the STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076) to expand and evaluate the Building Open Source Opportunities for Students in Tech (BOOST) model across three Washington community colleges.

BOOST engages software development students in credit-based courses working alongside professional software engineers on large-scale, widely used open-source projects to build transferrable technical skills and work experience. Green River College will expand the model to sub-recipients Olympic College and Skagit Valley College over the three-year performance period ending September 30, 2029. A mixed-methods case study of 60–75 students across the three institutions will identify the most effective model components, distill evidence about how components associate with educational and learning outcomes, and determine factors that moderate or mediate those relationships. Findings will enable other institutions to replicate BOOST components and broaden access to high-wage, in-demand computer science careers for community and technical college students.

Place of performance is Auburn, Washington.

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by engaging software development students in western washington state through a promising, project-based model: building open source opportunities for students in tech (boost). In boost, students from green river college work within credit-based courses alongside professional software engineers on large-scale, widely used software projects and gain valuable work experience and transferrable technical skills. Since the inception of the boost model, green river college has expanded, adapted, and updated boost to maximize its impact upon both career and educational student outcomes, with support from partner organizations - codeday labs and mentors in tech. The boost project has two primary outcomes. First, the project will gather evidence on the associations of the components of the model with educational and learning outcomes; the malleability of these components; and the factors and conditions that moderate or mediate the relationships between different components and learner outcomes. Second, the project will expand the boost model from green river college to subawardees olympic college and skagit valley college. Over three years, a mixed-methods case study of 60-75 students across the three colleges will identify and distill the most important and effective components of the boost model. This will enable other institutions to replicate these components in order to broaden access to high-wage, in-demand computer science careers for community and technical college students. The NSF iuse: innovation in two-year college stem education (ityc) program seeks to accelerate and advance knowledge about the impact of emerging and evidence-based practices in undergraduate stem education at two-year colleges. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are planned for this award.