||Increase college access, quality, and completion by
strengthening higher education and lifelong learning
opportunities. ||Restore and sustain America’s lead in the
modern knowledge economy, by improving the participation and
performance of America’s students in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects and fields. |How
progress is measured: ||Bachelor's degrees awarded in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics: 1998-99 and 2008-09
|Why is this measure important? ||Few issues matter more to
America’s vitality than continuing this nation’s tradition of
leading advances in science, technology, engineering, and math
(STEM) fields, and the host of applications that can
dramatically improve the quality of life in America and around
the world. Yet, the 2009 Program for International Student
Assessment (PISA) ranked American students behind their peers in
12 out of 33 other developed nations in science literacy (ahead
of peers in 9 nations and on par with peers in 12 nations) and