Baltimore - According to National Department of Education data, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) leads all other research universities in production of bachelor's degrees in Information Technology.

In 1996, the most recent year for which data is available, UMBC produced 257 bachelor's degrees in computer science from an undergraduate enrollment of 8,475. The University of Texas at Austin was a distant second in its class with 169 degrees awarded from an undergraduate enrollment of 35,789.

The 10,000-student university, located in Baltimore, MD, was beaten out in IT bachelor degree production by only one private, for-profit business school - Strayer College.

UMBC also led in the combined production of information technology bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees for women with 115. For 1996, UMBC nudged out Johns Hopkins University by a margin of 15 total computer science degrees. The total IT degrees awarded to women for other noted universities included New York University (92) and Syracuse (68).

The data is derived from the most recent degree totals reported in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System survey (IPEDS) which is administered by the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

The survey combines Computer Science and Information Systems degrees into a single category referred to as Computer Science.

The data was first observed by UMBC Computer Science and Electrical Engineering professor Tim Finin through his participation in a study on the shortage of information technology workers sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The data can be generated online through the NSF's WebCASPAR database.