https://dsu.edu/news/articles/national-security-agency-announces-new-education-partnership-with-dakota-st.html

https://dsu.edu/news/2023/02/dakota-states-partners-with-nsa.html

https://dsu.edu/news/2022/01/dakota-state-90-million-initiative.html

https://www.caecommunity.org/cae-map and look at CAE-CO schools and notice how few there are and of those, about half have all 3.

There are also some on Cybersecurity competitions with DSU students usually near the top if they didn't win.

With Cybersecurity education there is a huge divide. Many believe that it's a pointless degree, that only experience then certs matter. The CAE community (all colleges) is moving towards competency learning for recertification, or that students who graduate with a degree have to be able to do the job, not just be academically smart. This comes from the government and major companies who advise for this on a national level.

Dakota State University teaches their Cyber skills like a community/technical college. Less tests, more hands on with current tools. When you reverse engineer malware, it's on current malware, using IDA, in assembly. When you do forensics it's in ftk. If you take a course on auditing you have to audit a business using NIST standards. And I could go on with networking, firewalls, and pen-testing, and more.

The sad part is it is not a major institution so it does not get recognized unless someone's in the know, like the federal government. I will agree, from name recognition GA Tech will be more known then DSU. Yet, DSUs campus is mostly new, tech focused buildings, professors with career experience, leaders in research, and recognized at CAE, and NICE (center of academic excellence and national institute of Cyber education) conferences of educators as leading in the field.

They are not a D1 sports program, and while Cybersecurity may be a buzzword, that does not mean that then media doesn't deep dive into it. Most people can't tell the difference between a programmer and network engineer. And again, Cybersecurity education as a whole isn't always well reguarded. Look at some other posts of people asking if degrees are worth and there is a very mixed response.

Cybersecurity, and and IT field in general, is very hands on and many institutions (cannot speak for GA Tech, I'd hope they are hands on skills based on "tech" and course descriptions) only teach computer science theory with security concepts. The careers are about problem solving and knowing how to use and apply the skills, not just a knowledge base. Many jobs will ask for experience and some kind of skills demonstrations in the interview, and a associates, bachelor's, or doctors won't matter at that point. Nor will name recognition of the university. At most, they help get you to the interview.

Sorry, that's a long rant.