The Social Return on Investment in the Wy’east Post-Baccalaureate Pathway

The Wy’east Pathway (Wy’east) is an intensive and immersive 10-month medical education pathway for American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) college graduates who are committed to becoming physicians. The pathway is academically rigorous as it is meant to prepare scholars for the demands of medical school. Wy'east carefully cultivates an Indigenous community of support, in which scholars experience a safe space for building upon their Indigenous identity from which they may draw strength when they matriculate into medical school. Wy’east gives AIAN scholars the tools they need to be health professions leaders by holding them to a high standard of academic excellence and providing the critical nourishment integral to sustaining success.

The estimated investment needed to sponsor one Wy-east scholar through the 10-month Pathway is approximately $50,000. Wy’east engaged ECONorthwest, the largest economic consulting firm in the Pacific Northwest, to forecast Wy’east’s social return on investment (SROI). ECONorthwest concluded that the SROI will range from 821 percent to 1,773 percent, or between $460,268 and $936,54 in 2020 dollars. This report describes the analysis.

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