How State Universities are addressing the Shortage of Cybersecurity Professionals in the United States

Cybersecurity threats have been a serious and growing problem for decades. In addition, a severe shortage of cybersecurity professionals has been proliferating for nearly as long. These problems exist in the United States and globally and are well documented in literature. This study examined what state universities are doing to help address the shortage of cybersecurity professionals since higher education institutions are a primary source to the workforce pipeline. It is suggested that the number of cybersecurity professionals entering the workforce is related to the number of available programs. Thus increasing the number of programs will increase the number of cybersecurity professionals entering the workforce. This study used a qualitative approach to examine the programs offered through a sample of 201 state universities using a document review of online academic catalogs. The research examined the quantities and levels of cybersecurity programs and identified the institutions that used the National Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) structure to develop their programs. The results showed that an impressive 84.6% of the universities sampled offered a cybersecurity program and of which more than 50% received a CAE designation. Although the results were impressive, there are still unanswered questions requiring further study in regards to having a satisfactory number of programs to generate the needed talent to reduce the shortage. This study generated several important questions and recommendations and highlighted the availability of cybersecurity programs at the state university level at a snapshot in time. The results can be used to help identify any additional academic needs to help address the shortage of cybersecurity professionals.