2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Data science has become a popular professional field with many unfilled jobs [1]. In response to the emerging need on data science professions in today’s workforce, higher education institutions have become more and more interested in creating undergraduate programs in Data Science. In July 2020, ABET approved the initial criteria for accrediting undergraduate data science programs for public review and comment [2]. The current ABET criteria for data science, data analytics, and similarly named programs are included in its criteria for accrediting computing programs in 2025-26 [3].
To inform the design of new data science bachelor’s degree programs and support the continuous improvement of existing data science bachelor’s degree programs at higher education institutions in the United States, this study seeks to answer six questions regarding 1) the names and types of data science bachelor’s programs, 2) the lowest academic units where data science bachelor’s programs are hosted, 3) the related academic disciplines to which the courses required for a data science bachelor’s degree program belong, 4) the core courses typically required for a data science bachelor’s degree program in data science and related academic disciplines, 5) the elective courses typically included in a data science bachelor’s degree program, and 6) the extent to which the topics in ABET’s curriculum criterion are covered by core courses and elective courses, respectively, in data science bachelor’s degree programs.
To answer these research questions, we exhaustively went through the list of all currently ABET-accredited data science programs [4] and the list titled “60 bachelor degrees in data science” [8]. Using these two lists, we found 48 domestic, in-person bachelor’s degree programs in data science. By no means did we intend to make the list for this study exhaustive. While knowing that it does not include all such programs, we believe the list of 48 programs for this study is comprehensive. It includes programs offered at a diverse range of institutions in the United States, including public and private institutions, research-intensive doctoral universities and liberal arts colleges, minority-serving and faith-based institutions, and institutions of varying size. Moreover, it is our intention to focus on the programs developed by institutions that played a pioneering role in the creation of in-person undergraduate data science programs in the U.S.
In this paper, based on the analysis of these 48 programs, we present the names and types of data science programs, the lowest academic units they are hosted, and the mathematics, statistics, computer science, data science, as well as information- and business-related courses included in their curricula. Furthermore, this paper discusses the extent to which the general computing and data science topics specified in ABET’s curriculum criterion for accrediting data science programs are covered in these programs. Results of this study provide valuable insights for the educators at higher education institutions in the U.S., especially those who are interested in creating or continuously improving their bachelor’s degree programs in data science.