Landscape of Quantum Information Science and Engineering Education: From Physics Foundations to Interdisciplinary Frontiers

TL;DR

This study provides the first comprehensive national portrait of quantum information science and engineering education in US higher education by analyzing catalogs from 1,456 institutions. Using three-tier categorization—all quantum courses, courses with QISE topics, and dedicated QISE courses—the authors map where quantum-related instruction occurs, which disciplines contribute most, and how access varies by institution type and resources. They find 61 institutions offer 89 QISE programs, with a strong concentration at PhD-granting, resource-rich universities; physics, CS, and ECE are the main drivers, while chemistry shows limited dedicated QISE offerings. Across all courses, nearly 8,500 formats mention quantum, but only about 529 are QISE-specific, and lab-based QISE offerings remain scarce, especially at MSIs and two-year schools. The publicly available dataset provides a foundation for curriculum design, workforce development, and policy, and the work argues for embedding QISE content into existing courses and developing scalable labs to broaden access across institutions and disciplines.

Abstract

Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE) is rapidly gaining interest from those within many disciplines and higher education needs to adapt to the changing landscape. Although QISE education still has a strong presence and roots in physics, the field is becoming increasingly interdisciplinary. There is a need to understand the presence of QISE instruction and quantum-related instruction across all disciplines in order to figure out where QISE education is already happening and where it could be expanded. Although there is recent work that characterizes introductory QISE courses, there is no holistic picture of the landscape of QISE and quantum-related education in the United States. We analyzed course catalogs from 1,456 U.S. institutions. We found 61 institutions offering QISE degree programs, mostly at PhD-granting schools, with physics, electrical and computer engineering (ECE), and computer science(CS) as their primary contributors . Across all institutions, we identified over 8,000 courses mentioning 'quantum,' but about one-third of institutions in our study had none. We also found over 500 dedicated QISE courses, concentrated in PhD-granting institutions, primarily in physics, ECE, and CS. Physics leads in offering both general quantum-related ($\sim$4,700) and QISE-specific ($\sim$200) courses. Across multiple disciplines, we see that QISE topics are being introduced in courses not fully dedicated to QISE, which may be a productive strategy for increasing access to QISE education. Our dataset and analysis provide the most comprehensive overview to date of quantum education across US higher education. To ensure broad access, all data are publicly available and downloadable at quantumlandscape.streamlit.app. We hope these findings will support and guide future efforts in curriculum design, workforce development, and education policy across the quantum ecosystem.

Figures (7)

• Figure 1: Hierarchical categorization of courses listed in physics departments. Individual courses were sorted into the categories in the rightmost column. The categories were then grouped as shown.
• Figure 2: Maps of post-secondary institutions in the US with QISE programs. Each map includes all program types identified in this study (full degrees, certificates, minors, or tracks/concentrations/emphases) at their respective levels (undergraduate, post-baccalaureate or master's, and doctoral).
• Figure 3: Heatmap showing the details of different QISE programs in the US. The vertical axis has information on the level and type of program being offered. The horizontal axis labels the discipline in which the program is offered.
• Figure 4: Three plots showing the number of courses, from different subsets of the data, offered within different disciplines. 'All courses with quantum,' refers to the entire data set. 'Courses with QISE topics' refers to the number of courses whose descriptions contained a QISE keyword (recall that 'quantum' is not a QISE keyword; QISE is a narrower category than 'quantum'). QISE courses were categorized based on their titles and descriptions and were determined to be focused on primarily QISE content. Numerical values for these bars can be found in Appendix \ref{['chart_values']}.
• Figure 5: Number of physics courses of different types at different levels.