NASA’s updated Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) student competition introduces community college students in the United States to the agency’s missions and experts while offering them the opportunity to explore careers in aerospace, science, engineering and technology. Participants compete for prize money. Applications are open; the deadline to register is Monday, Sept. 28.
Alicia Baturoni Cortez, the project manager who oversees NCAS in NASA’s Minority University Research and Education Project, said the program is one of the few opportunities specifically aimed at community college students. NCAS is intended to help students enter the workforce directly or pursue four-year education in STEM fields.
The program changed the career trajectory of Kim Alexander, a student at Riverside Community College. After bartending for eight years, Alexander turned to mathematics while considering graphic design and became part of the winning team that designed a crewed mission to Mars through NCAS. Ashley Rodriguez, who studied IT at Miami-Dade Community College, discovered the field of strategic communications through the program.
Rodriguez and Alexander began NCAS-supported internships in January 2024 at NASA’s Aerosciences Evaluation and Test Capabilities Portfolio Office. After earning their college degrees, the two moved on to NASA Pathways internships, taking on assignments that could lead to full-time employment. Rodriguez is interning in strategic communications at Kennedy Space Center, while Alexander is interning in engineering at Armstrong Flight Research Center.
Why it matters
NCAS is making the transition between classroom instruction for community college students and real-world work experience in the aerospace industry more visible. The program’s impact is not limited to the competition process; it helps students from different educational and professional backgrounds pursue four-year STEM education or enter the workforce directly. The experiences of Alexander and Rodriguez show that the skills they acquired can be used in different roles within NASA, such as engineering and strategic communications. In this respect, the development is particularly relevant to young people who have limited options available to this group of students. However, the announcement does not state how many students the updated program will support or to what extent internship opportunities after the competition will expand.
Background
NASA is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 21 reports mentioning the name in the past 90 days; the most recent was dated September 4, 2026.