By Stephen Nellis

(Reuters). Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:) Thursday’s announcement by NASDAQ stated that it will work with American community colleges to fill the 250,000 jobs in cybersecurity over the next 4 years.

Microsoft stated that the company will offer scholarships and assistance to approximately 25,000 students. In addition, it will train existing and new teachers at 150 local community colleges. It also announced that the company will offer curriculum materials free of charge to all country’s community colleges and four-year institutions.

Brad Smith, Microsoft president, stated that over the next three year’s we will contribute many tens to millions of dollars towards this effort. “This gives us the opportunity to get going. There is no limit to what we will do.

Microsoft’s actions come at a time when the United States is facing some of its most complex hacks. This includes the SolarWinds attack, which U.S officials claim has affected 18,000 entities including several federal agencies. President Joe Biden held a meeting https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-cyber-biden-idAFL1N2PW1YR with Microsoft and other large technology companies in August aimed at improving technology supply chain security.

While the White House met with key concerns about jobs, officials stated that only half of a million job openings remain vacant.

Smith claimed that while many customers who have been affected by hackers have had better security practices than they did, many don’t have the right cybersecurity personnel.

Smith noted, “Clearly, we need to move rapidly to train people to fulfill what are, honestly, great job in our opinion,” Smith added, noting that these jobs have an average pay of over $105,000 and that there are two open jobs for each one that is filled.