About

A United States citizen or permanent resident. 

A full-time on-campus student in a Cybersecurity degree program at UCCS Computer Science. A full-time Cybersecurity bachelor student within two years of graduation at UCCS or a qualified rising junior/senior at UCCS pursuing a Computer Science degree with a Cybersecurity concentration, a master student in the Cybersecurity program at UCCS Computer Science, or a Ph.D. student in the Computer Science program at UCCS.

Scholars should not have other employment or receive other scholarships with work expectations during time as a CWSSP scholarship recipient.

Each student must meet the selection criteria for the executive branch of the government employment.  

Internship placements and final job placements in federal government organizations typically require security clearances. Scholarship recipients are required to undergo the background investigation necessary to obtain such clearances as part of the job/internship application process. 

Complete the degree program successfully and on time. 

Participate in government internship positions in the summers during the years of scholarship study; doctoral students may be allowed to replace their summer internship with a research activity following a recommendation from their academic advisor and approval from the NSF program office. 

Upon graduation, each student will be required to work in a position related to cybersecurity in an executive agency organization of the U.S. Government for a period equal to the length of the scholarship or one year, whichever is longer (an academic year of scholarship establishes a requirement for one calendar year of work). 

Each student is responsible for identifying, applying for, and securing a qualified position.  

Participate in the CWSSP and CyberCorps® Scholarship activities, such as conferences, workshops, seminars, Virtual Team Course.  

Yes, you must be enrolled full-time at UCCS to apply for the CWSSP Scholarship. 

Additionally, all CWSSP scholars must attend classes in-person (exception is made during mandatory on-line learning as required by local, state or federal government officials). 

If awarded the scholarship you become part of a cohort that works closely together on projects and participate in team activities that require you to be on campus. 

You can apply for the scholarship at the same time you are applying to study at UCCS, however the scholarship will not be available until your enrollment is confirmed. Typically it is more difficult for newly admitted students to be awarded the scholarship. 

There is no policy against current employees applying for the scholarship. However, the monthly stipend is intended to provide a basic living allowance while in school. Outside work is generally limited to 10 hours per week, and anything more than 15 hours per week will make you ineligible for the stipend. 

If you are a current government employee, there is no guarantee you would go back to the same agency where you were previously employed. 

There's no guarantee you will be able to stay in the same location.

You do not receive a stipend during the summer months. Generally speaking, your 10 week summer internship will be paid employment. There are a few agencies that offer unpaid internships but we do not require the students to accept them, but you can if you choose to.

You can find a list of SFS Executive/Non-Executive Agencies listed here.

The program covers, not only occupational series 2210, but also the array of series in which the duties require unique cyber security skills and knowledge to perform cyber risk and strategic analysis, incident handling and malware/vulnerability analysis, program management, distributed control systems security, cyber incident response, cyber exercise facilitation and management, cyber vulnerability detection and assessment, network and systems engineering, enterprise architecture, investigation, investigative analysis and cyber-related infrastructure inter-dependency analysis. For example, 0080 Security, 0391 Telecommunications, 0854 Computer Engineer, 0855 Electronic Engineer, 1515 Operations Research, 1550 Computer Scientist, and 1811 Criminal Investigator. As well as, Miscellaneous Administrative and Program (0301) series when those positions require unique cyber security skills and knowledge.