In April 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) submitted a report to Congress in response to a National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 requirement that assessed the requirements for educating military and civilian leaders in the information environment and the cyberspace domain. The motivation for this request was concern in Congress about DoD’s plans to close the College of Information and Cyberspace (CIC), part of the National Defense University (NDU). The report concluded that CIC should remain at NDU but also suggested that further research should be done to ensure that CIC’s capability and capacity are in line with both near-term and longer-term needs for education in the information environment and cyberspace domain. 1 At the request of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, this RAND Corporation report responds to that call for additional research. The findings agree that CIC plays an important role in providing information and cyberspace education in the DoD educational ecosystem but goes beyond that to recommend that CIC should expand its role as a center of excellence in these areas, given continued and likely growing requirements for this expertise.

Approach Because this report focuses on the future role of CIC in the DoD educational ecosystem, it addresses education primarily at the Joint Professional Military Education Phase II, typically provided to officers in the grades of O-5 (lieutenant colonel/commander) and O-6 (colonel/captain) and equivalent graduate education levels. The research team employed a mixed-methods approach that focused on the 13 institutions with the most relevant course or degree programs—reviewing websites and detailed information about each institution’s cyber and information offerings through open-source literature and semistructured discussions with college faculty and staff. This work was supplemented with additional data on faculty, student, and curriculum offerings; review of relevant literature; and additional interviews focused on workforce needs for education in cyberspace and information.

Findings Our assessment of the degree and certificate programs offered by the educational institutions included in this research effort indicated an array of educational options for generalists and specialists—communities that have different responsibilities but also must be able to collaborate and communicate effectively. Specialist degree programs tend to focus on strategy, management, and/or technical curricula. Among these programs, CIC’s focus is distinct from other institutions within the DoD educational ecosystem in that it is the only institution that provides multiple degrees and graduate certificates that span strategy and management specializations, as well as continuing education in cyberspace and information. Moreover, the CIC degree programs benefit from synergies with the college’s certificate offerings—often leading alumni who begin certificate programs to complete additional credentials or degree programs.

Furthermore, interviews with stakeholders suggest that programs like CIC’s have high utility—that warfighters in general need more education in joint planning, joint cyberspace operations, nonkinetic warfare, and whole-of-government cooperation. Leaders and operators alike need a better understanding of cyberspace capabilities and how to better communicate about them. But current cyberspace and information curriculum needs to adapt more quickly to the evolving operational needs—something institutions said they needed more assistance with.

Similarly, many of the organizations we talked to desire more engagement with educational institutions to support the organizations’ missions through continuing education. Yet it is often up to the individual to pursue professional development opportunities—with little institutional motivation or coordination.

Although future demand for cyber and information educational opportunities is difficult to project, our estimates suggest that the capacity of the current system—with supply measured in the annual number of academic year graduates—may not cover all of DoD’s needs for either the military or civilian workforce. Our conclusion is that DoD needs at least its current capacity to educate cyber and information professionals and should likely look for opportunities to grow, particularly in the strategy and management focus areas that CIC specializes in. Moreover, DoD institutions also serve some of the needs of other federal agencies and international military partners, which adds to this demand.

This landscape suggests that there is a role for CIC not only in maintaining its distinct educational offerings but also in playing other leadership roles in the DoD educational ecosystem—an overarching finding that motivates our recommendations.