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BATON ROUGE, La. – On Wednesday, the Board of Regents reviewed funding recommendations from the Cybersecurity Education Management Council (CEMC) to expand cyber education for college students across Louisiana as the state seeks to better meet workforce needs. The Council was legislatively created in 2020 with funding provided to support its mission. One program launched with Council funding is the Louisiana Cyber Academy (LCA), led by Bossier Parish Community College. The LCA is a collaborative strategy building cyber expertise in the state to develop and expand the delivery of relevant cybersecurity courses statewide. The LCA pilot launched with six institutions – Bossier Parish Community College, Baton Rouge Community College, Grambling State University, LSU Shreveport, Nicholls State University, and Southern University at New Orleans. During the Spring 2025 semester, the partner institutions offered two courses, which they co-created, to one-hundred forty (140) students across their institutions. The courses offered this semester are Problem Solving and Programming Techniques, which introduces students to programming in Python, and Information Technology Principles, which prepares students to sit for the CompTIA Tech+ exam. The plan is to offer courses to prepare students for the CompTIA A+ exam this summer and more courses this fall. In addition, the CEMC’s recommendations to fund 11 campus-specific cyber initiatives for $1.73 million were discussed in areas ranging from cybersecurity in the energy sector to cybersecurity in AI. One of the recommendations is for continued funding of the Louisiana Cyber Academy. CEMC will consider these recommendations at its meeting in early May. Cybersecurity is widely recognized as a critical statewide and national high-demand occupation field. According to Cyberseek, an online tool that provides data and insights related to the cybersecurity job market, in 2025 the U.S. had over 450,000 openings that required cybersecurity-related skills. On average, cybersecurity roles take 21% longer to fill than other information technology (IT) jobs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Louisiana Board of Regents, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2024, was created by the 1974 State Constitution and serves as the coordinating body for all public higher education in Louisiana. LEARN MORE ABOUT REGENTS: https://www.laregents.edu LOUISIANA'S HIGHER EDUCATION MASTER PLAN: https://www.laregents.edu/masterplan LOUISIANA'S GOT TALENT PODCAST ON APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/louisianas-got-talent/id1667599307 LOUISIANA'S GOT TALENT PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/3bE67b3sZVJ64P3yYfOdGS FOLLOW REGENTS ON TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/la_regents FOLLOW REGENTS ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/LABoardofRegents FOLLOW REGENTS ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/la_regents #LaProspers
