Insights from Twenty Years of Biotechnology Credential Data

The U.S. bioeconomy has been estimated to be $950 billion and growing [1]. Sustaining this growth requires a skilled workforce who can manufacture goods developed through biotechnology. Scaling the biotechnology workforce to the needed level requires the ability to measure its size. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) is the federal agency responsible for gathering education data in the U.S. Colleges that receive federal funding are mandated by law to report data every year to the NCES. Given the comprehensive nature of these data, we sought to determine whether it could be used to measure the number of certificates and degrees in biotechnology awarded by two-year colleges. An unexpected challenge was the requirement by the NCES data retrieval page for Classification of Instructional Program (CIP) codes and the inconsistent use of CIP codes by college biotechnology programs. We were able to circumvent these challenges by using data from the InnovATEBIO National Center for Biotechnology Education. InnovATEBIO data allowed us to identify two-year colleges with biotechnology programs and use those results to learn which CIP codes were being assigned. Knowing the CIP codes and their use in different states supplied the information we needed to obtain certificate and degree completion data from the NCES. These data provided insights into the changing numbers and demographics of biotech students during the past twenty years. Not only are these data important for understanding trends in biotechnology education, they are imperative for guiding the initiation, development, and sustainability of biotechnology education programs at two-year colleges.