The Iowa State Economics Department’s Saturday Morning Breakfast Club mentors undergraduate research in a group setting rather than one-on-one. The group setting allows students to learn from each other and takes advantage of returns to scale in mentoring compared to the traditional one-on-one research advising. The switch to this model allowed us to greatly expand opportunities for undergraduate research despite shrinking numbers of faculty and rising numbers of students seeking research experiences. The quality of the research experience is evident in the number of placements in national competitions, refereed publications, and student reactions to the experience.

Barshay, J. 2023. “PROOF POINTS: High Schoolers Account for Nearly 1 Out of Every 5 Community College Students.” The Hechinger Report. https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-high-schoolers-account-for-nearly-1-out-of-every-5-community-college-students/.

College Board. 2023. Annual AP Program Participation, 1956-2023. https://reports.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/annual-ap-program-participation-1956-2023.pdf

Nayga, R.M., Jr., J. Liu, and B. Kassas. 2024. “The Looming Demographic Cliff: A Wake‐Up Call for the Agricultural and Applied Economics Profession.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, forthcoming.

Nolan, J.R., K.S. McConville, V. Addona, N.L. Tintle, and D.K. Pearl. 2020. “Mentoring Undergraduate Research in Statistics: Reaping the Benefits and Overcoming the Barriers.” Journal of Statistics Education 28(2):140–153.

Russell, S.H., M.P. Hancock, and J. McCullough. 2007. “Benefits of Undergraduate Research Experiences.” Science 316(5824):548–549.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. 2024. Digest of Education Statistics:2022

Wayment, H.A., and K.L. Dickson. 2008. “Increasing Student Participation in Undergraduate Research Benefits Students, Faculty, and Department.” Teaching of Psychology 35(3):194–197.