Columbia, Cornell, Fordham and New York universities are among the region's institutions with major plans to grow their science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) student bodies and, as a result, build new facilities. Drawing on long-term, billion-dollar capital investment programs, several have already begun to add space for classrooms, research, collaboration and even residential housing. Even public schools with smaller, dwindling budgets are including a STEM push in long-range plans to add or modernize facilities, many of which are 100 years old.
The local efforts are in line with New York City's plans to become a world-class science and technology hub but they are not restricted to the city. Earlier this month, the University of Pennsylvania opened a world-class, 78,000-sq-ft nanotechnology center in Philadelphia, and Buffalo University (BU) broke ground Oct. 15 on a $375-million medical school in Niagara, N.Y.