A scholarship program aimed at preparing college students to start IT-related careers in government has proven effective in supplying a flow of new employees for those high-demand occupations, a House committee was told.
A hearing focused on the CyberCorps®: Scholarship for Service program, a joint OPM-DHS-National Science Foundation program that provides funding to colleges to develop and enhance cybersecurity education programs and curricula and to provide scholarships to undergraduate and graduate students. Scholarship recipients can be supported for up to three years, and in return they must agree to take government cybersecurity positions for the same duration as their scholarships.
An NSF official told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that while the program hasn’t achieved its goal of 100 percent placement in government cybersecurity-related positions, it comes close: the placement rates for the 2013 and 2014 graduating classes were 97 and 95 percent, respectively and the still-incomplete placement rate for the 2015 class is 92 percent.
SFS scholarship recipients have been placed in internships and full-time positions in more than 140 agencies.
