Creating pathways to Advance Cybersecurity Career Education for STEM Success

According to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Strategic Plan (2023), the United States faces a lack of qualified cybersecurity professionals. Compounding these concerns, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024), projects a 32% increase in cybersecurity-related careers from 2022-2032, resulting in nearly 17,000 job openings annually. The goal of this project at the Community College of Beaver County (CCBC), located north of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, is to create early and continuing educational pathways for emerging cybersecurity professionals. This project will generate students who will be prepared to enter the cybersecurity workforce, addressing the work force needs of the Western Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio regions. The objectives of this project are to (1) Create academic pathways to cybersecurity careers, (2) Support student academic success and retention, and (3) Prepare students to enter the cybersecurity workforce. The project will be evaluated using a mixed-methods approach to gather quantitative and qualitative data as evidence of the completion of deliverables and obtainment of project outcomes. Methods will include document reviews, gathering project-level and institutional data, disseminating surveys, and holding conversations with the project team. The curriculum and programming established as part of this project will remain as elements of the college's cybersecurity curriculum after the grant end date. This project is funded by the Advanced Technological Education program that focuses on the education of technicians for the advanced-technology fields that drive the nation's economy. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.