Cyber scholarship program expands

Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service

The National Science Foundation has tapped 13 schools to receive $19 million to expand the government's Scholarship for Service program — a move that will increase the number of students and universities in the program.

The program provides scholarships to graduate and undergraduate students studying information assurance in exchange for a one- or two-year stint in the federal Cyber Corps after graduation.

President Bush approved the $19 million last Aug. 2 when he signed the fiscal 2002 supplemental appropriations bill. On Feb. 14, NSF plans to announce that it will use the money to launch the Scholarship for Service program at four more institutions as well as enable the nine schools already in the program to add about 10 students each.

This new infusion of money will double the number of the students participating in the program to about 300 and will focus primarily on preparing students with bachelor's and master's degrees in critical information security fields.

The four new schools are:

* Norwich University, Vt.

* Syracuse University, N.Y.

* Idaho State University.

* Florida State University.

The nine existing schools that will receive additional money are the Naval Postgraduate School, Calif.; Carnegie Mellon University, Pa.; Polytechnic University, N.Y.; University of Tulsa, Okla.; University of Idaho; University of North Carolina at Charlotte; Mississippi State University; Purdue University; and Georgia Institute of Technology.

The funding is awarded to colleges and universities already certified by the National Security Agency as Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance.

To date, NSF has invested about $22 million in the scholarship program, which included efforts to help schools establish their infrastructures to conduct education programs in information security.