Today’s youth are tomorrow’s designers, engineers, artists and entrepreneurs, which is why Best Buy is committed to building brighter futures for students across the country.
To support students and build a diverse talent pipeline, we are proud to join the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Partnership Challenge. The challenge is a bipartisan effort led by the Congressional HBCU Caucus to promote greater engagement and support between private companies and HBCUs, including developing new career possibilities for students and improving diversity and inclusion across industries.
“Best Buy is committed to increasing diversity within all levels of our company,” said Amelia Hardy, Best Buy’s vice president of strategic community engagement. “HBCUs are excellent pipelines for diverse talent and known to produce amazing graduates who go on to be very successful in their careers.”
The challenge, launched in 2017, aims to bring together private and public partners to support HBCUs nationwide. Building a strong tech talent pipeline is important for the workforce of the future, and HBCUs produce 27% of all African-American STEM graduates and 40% of all African-American engineers.
By partnering with HBCUs, we can expand our work on building a stronger and more innovative talent pipeline for the future.
Creating more support for HBCU students
In December, we announced a five-year plan to address underrepresentation, technology inequities, and education in our company and communities we serve. The plan includes a $44 million commitment to expand college prep and career opportunities.
As part of those efforts, we partnered with the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) to launch a scholarship fund that helps reduce financial barriers for Black students attending historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and prepares them for the tech-reliant jobs of the future.
Through the scholarship fund, we have committed to supporting a minimum of 24 students over the next eight years. Each scholar is eligible to receive up to $20,000 in financial assistance each year for four years. (Click here to learn more about the inaugural class of Best Buy Scholars, each of whom received an internship and mentorship along with their scholarship.)
“We are looking forward to more HBCU grads, like myself, joining our team in the future and are honored to sign this pledge,” said Amelia, who received her bachelor’s degree from Xavier University. “There will always be the need for HBCUs that are committed to preparing diverse students to thrive in a world that’s not always designed to work in their favor.”
Click here to learn more about our commitment to help young people across the country.