Along with coverage for college tuition and expenses, these $12,000 per year, renewable scholarships give students an opportunity to learn and participate in internships and research related to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space projects. Students will also participate in leadership seminars.

NACME provides both leadership and support for the national effort to increase the representation of successful African American, American Indian and Latino men and women in engineering and technology and in mathematics and science-based careers.

Since 1998, NASA and NACME have partnered to provide enriched scholarships to students at 22 select institutions. Both the USAR Program and the Space Station Engineering Scholars Program are administered by NACME under the direction of the Minority University Research and Education Division of the NASA Office of Equal Opportunity through the NASA Glenn Research Center.

The NASA/NACME Space Station Engineering Scholars Program, instituted in spring of 2000, is designed to build a pool of engineers to support the Human Exploration and Development of Space strategic enterprise.