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Over the last decade, the emergence of technician education has taken center stage at secondary and post-secondary educational institutions through the proliferation of industry needs and employer-partner engagement. Through employer-partner engagement, Southern University at Shreveport, Louisiana (SUSLA), a community college unit within the Southern University and A&M College System, conducted a systematic review, assessment, and revision of its curricula that addressed the needs of industry. SUSLA’s comprehensive assessment, guided by employer-partner input, community college and 4-year university collaborations, and published workforce data, identified a pressing need to develop an Engineering Technology program. To that end, SUSLA developed a 2+2+2 Matriculation Model within the Engineering Technology associate of applied science degree program designed as a gateway to enable early education, persistence to post-secondary credentials of value, and high-quality career outcomes. Programs with similar demographics may be able to use this as a model which aims to do four things: 1) facilitate the early engagement of students decreasing the number of academically underprepared learners entering college, 2) expand postsecondary educational opportunities to improve outcomes fostering economic opportunity 3) increase the enrollment, persistence and graduation of early education and underserved populations in STEM and, 4) facilitate a reduction in time to degree. SUSLA’s 2+2+2 Matriculation Model provides high school students with the opportunity to earn dual-enrollment post-secondary credentials through its certificate of technical offerings in Engineering and Engineering Technology. Additionally, the model facilitates an increase in the participation rate of students in STEM and provides more academic opportunities and career exploration through collaborative industry-academic networks. Furthermore, the model produces workforce-ready technicians which accelerates academic and technical skill attainment and, thereby addresses a) the shortage in moderate to middle-skill jobs that require some college, but less than a bachelor’s degree; and b) the ongoing need for highly skilled STEM graduates to maintain the nation’s competitiveness in productivity and innovation.