Hot job: Cybersecurity expert
Hot job: Cybersecurity expert
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With tens of thousands of open jobs and grant money galore, local colleges are boosting their cybersecurity programs; ‘there’s just such a shortage’
Cyber attacks grew during the pandemic, as more companies moved to a remote workforce and criminals found ways to profit from ransomware and other attacks. Colleges were already growing their cybersecurity programs before Covid, and many are boosting them now.
by Cristina Bolling
When it comes to careers that promise guaranteed job offers, impressive stability and a robust salary, cybersecurity checks all the boxes — and North Carolina colleges are rolling out and ramping up cybersecurity programs to grow the workforce at a quick pace.
Every facet of industry imaginable is now facing the villains of cyberwarfare — government, military, manufacturing, finance, education, healthcare. And as quickly as the U.S. is adding cyber experts to its ranks, the demand is growing.
The U.S. added more than 260,000 cybersecurity workers between 2020 and 2021, according to a report from cybersecurity nonprofit (ISC)2, but even still, there are more than 714,000 open cybersecurity jobs in the U.S., including 24,000 in North Carolina and 7,181 in South Carolina, according to cyberseek.org.
Enter the colleges.
From two-year community colleges to four-year universities, schools across the Charlotte region are quickly creating and expanding their cybersecurity programs, often taking advantage of grants aimed at increasing the flow of cybersecurity professionals. Even schools without computer science programs have found a way to include cybersecurity in their course offerings.
The growth is happening all over the state:
This fall, UNC Wilmington is launching two new bachelor’s of science programs: cybersecurity and intelligent systems engineering. UNCW is the first university in the UNC system to offer those undergraduate degrees.
Appalachian State University launched a cybersecurity concentration in 2021.
Even small Montreat College, with an enrollment of less than 1,000 outside of Asheville, has built an attention-grabbing cybersecurity program that has secured millions in government grants.
For both colleges and the students who graduate from them, cybersecurity can be lucrative. The median pay for an information security analyst in 2021 was $102,600, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Big jump in a longstanding program: UNC Charlotte started its cybersecurity program more than 20 years ago, when the discipline looked far different than it does now, and for many years, enrollment totaled fewer than 50 students. But the numbers started climbing fast about five years ago and have been growing ever since, said Bill Chu, a professor in the UNC Charlotte College of Computing and Informatics.
Now, there are more than 200 undergraduate students studying cybersecurity at UNC Charlotte, an additional 50 to 100 in the cybersecurity master’s program, and about 30 students pursuing a Ph.D. in the field. The school also has a non-degree cybersecurity certification program that typically draws a small number of students, Chu said.
Each year, UNC Charlotte hosts a cybersecurity symposium (this year’s will be on Oct. 12-13), which typically draws about 600 people and includes a job fair that attracts employers looking for cybersecurity workers.
Some 17 current cybersecurity students at UNC Charlotte are receiving full scholarships plus stipends from the federal government with the agreement that they’ll work for the government after graduation. More than 100 students have gone through that program over the 20 years UNC Charlotte has participated in it, Chu said.
Major recognition for a small program: On the other end of the size spectrum is Gaston College, a 2-year college with three campuses in the towns of Dallas, Lincolnton and Belmont.
The college has about 60 students in its networking and cybersecurity associate’s degree program, and this spring it hit a major milestone: It received a “Certificate of Academic Excellence” designation from the National Security Administration — a rigorous process that requires that the NSA review and certify the program of study, as well as a study of how the college or university as a whole handles cybersecurity. (Some 15 North Carolina colleges have the NSA designation, including UNC Charlotte and Central Piedmont Community College.)
Gaston College also this year received a $2M state grant to expand its cybersecurity programs. It plans to use some of that money to build programs in its Belmont campus aimed at cybersecurity in the manufacturing and textile industries, according to Mark Shellman, chair of the Information Technology Department at Gaston College.
Many of Gaston College’s cybersecurity graduates go on to work in local government or for healthcare companies like CaroMont Health and even on Gaston College’s own campus, Shellman said. Others pursue four-year degrees.
“There’s just such a shortage across the spectrum that companies of course would love someone with a master’s degree, but they may not be able to find them,” Shellman said. “If they employ someone with an associate’s degree that has an excellent foundation, they can build upon that.”
Taking a leadership approach: At Queens University, the emphasis in cybersecurity is on the leadership and program-management part of the workforce. Queens doesn’t have a computer science program, so it offers a certificate in cybersecurity management program as a part of its master’s program in its business school, the McColl School of Business, through a partnership with the University of Dallas.
Currently, there are 10 students in that program.
“It’s important to realize there’s a wide spectrum of jobs in the cybersecurity space,” said Rick Mathieu, dean of Queens’ McColl School of Business. “You’ve got the technicians … but there’s also a wide range of jobs on the managerial or project management level that requires you to bridge the gap between the technology and the management of the organization.”
‘Grant programs galore’: Central Piedmont Community College, which itself was the victim of a cyber attack in 2021 that shut down classes and caused a massive loss of data, started a digital forensics and data assurance program in 2012 that has grown from 18 students in 2015 to about 130 students today. (The program changed its name this fall to “cybersecurity.”)
Before the pandemic, Central Piedmont was a major training facility for local public safety agencies fighting cyber crimes, said Joe Little, associate dean of technology at Central Piedmont.
Central Piedmont has secured a variety of grants for its cybersecurity and software development programs, including ones from the U.S. Department of Education, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.
“We’re getting a lot of industry push and grant funding to promote cybersecurity,” Little said. “There are grant programs galore for colleges and universities who train cybersecurity workers.”
Cristina Bolling is managing editor of the Ledger: cristina@cltledger.com
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project