More than 1.3M people across the country work in cybersecurity, but there are more than half a million open jobs still open. From network administrators to ethical hackers, there’s a need for cybersecurity workers across industries, including less traditional ones like healthcare and manufacturing.

A new initiative between Baylor University, McLennan Community College, and the for-profit tech training provider General Assembly aims to address the cybersecurity workforce gap, starting in central Texas. General Assembly will provide its curriculum for IT basics and Python programming that prepare students to take certification exams. Baylor and McLennan will provide the instructors and hands-on training at their $3.5M Central Texas Cyber Range.

The Big Idea: It’s an unusual partnership that brings together two-year and four-year institutions and a for-profit tech training program. The collaborators say they each bring a unique strength, and the only way they’ll be able to address the workforce demand is by working together....

....Frieda Molina, director of economic mobility, housing, and communities at the social policy research organization MDRC, said that the model holds some promise. 

“Developing new course curricula and getting it accredited and all of that takes time on the part of an educational institution,” Molina says. “This could be a way that they’re being responsive to labor market demand to prepare their students in the best possible way to be able to find employment post-graduation….”

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