The national conversation about the value of education is currently dominated by speculation about the risks and positive potential of AI. 

Whatever your own perspective on that debate, I hope you’ll be glad to know that MIT is also working on a deeply important but comparatively old-fashioned challenge: American high school students’ startlingly uneven access to calculus. According to the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education, which covers the nation’s more than 13,000 school districts, in almost half of US high schools calculus isn’t even offered. 

As our graduates know better than anyone, preparation in calculus is effectively an admissions requirement at a place like MIT—which means that students in schools with no calculus classes are in practice locked out of an essential route to STEM careers.

Recognizing this glaring need, we set out to find a solution. With support and inspiration from the Siegel Family Foundation, in the fall of 2025 the Institute launched the MIT4America Calculus Project. Developed by the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program (STEP) Lab, the Calculus Project recruits and trains MIT undergraduates and alumni to provide weekly long-distance calculus tutoring for students in underresourced high schools across the country.

Reflecting the Institute’s longstanding commitment to national service, the MIT4America Calculus Project supplies an innovative answer to a hard practical problem, and it taps the uncommon skill of MIT’s people to create opportunity for others and spread the educational impact of the Institute beyond our walls. 

The project is in its early phases, so far engaging 30 MIT undergraduates and seven alumni tutors. From its initial work with 14 school districts across the country, it’s on track to collaborate with about 20 this summer. 

The demand is clear—and the response from the students we’re reaching makes it all worthwhile. This spring, the first Calculus Project students were prepared for their AP exams, thanks to their own persistence, diligence, and curiosity—and to the generosity, care, and patience of a dedicated group of people from MIT.