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The United States has a wide range of institutions of higher education, from two-year community colleges that focus primarily on job training to the research universities that train the next generation of Ph.D. scientists and produce a large share of knowledge. Some research universities are private, and others are public. Most states have a public flagship university or two, along with many more regional colleges where research has less emphasis and a slew of two-year community or technical colleges as well. The U.S. is also home to liberal arts colleges, which have no Ph.D. programs but where under- graduates benefit from small classes and intensive hands-on research experiences with the faculty. Most liberal arts colleges in the United States are private, although some states support a public liberal arts college as well. The nonflagship state and other private universities that do not have Ph.D. programs in chemistry and liberal arts colleges are collectively known as predominately undergraduate institutions or PUIs. PUIs play an important part in the United States scientific infrastructure, as they excel at providing the initial training of undergraduates, who learn the scientific method by hands-on research with their faculty mentors. 

The STEM Scholars program at Bucknell University was originally supported with a five-year National Science Foundation STEP grant to begin recruitment for a summer program in 2014. The grant, with a one-year no-cost extension, supported six cohorts of students. The recruitment of participants was specifically designed to attract typically underrepresented populations into STEM (Pell eligible, first generation, students of color, female identifying). As a result of successful implementation as measured by retention, persistence, and graduation rates, the university has secured private donations from generous alumni to endow the program. The tenth cohort of scholars participated in the summer of 2024.