Supply Chain and Information Systems undergraduate and graduate programs have surged in popularity since 2020. Professors around the country all point to the pandemic as piquing student interest in how a good makes it from a factory to a store shelf and the complex interplay of the moving parts in between.    

Read also: Dynamic Pricing Models in Supply Chain Management: Adapting to Market Fluctuations and Demand Shifts

Four years have passed since the onset of the COVID pandemic, yet its impact is difficult to undo. While the pandemic primarily affected the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions, it also significantly altered the high school experience for teenagers, who had to adapt to virtual classrooms and live the social and economic upheavals around them.  

While the baby formula shortage or the toilet paper crisis may not have been life-altering for most high school students, the mere occurrence of such shortages, even in the United States, brought about a unique perspective in this generation. 

The University of Tennessee, Penn State, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Michigan State are just a handful of the leading universities with supply-chain programs. Students entering these programs bring real-life experience and a heightened sense of curiosity that was not as noticeable in prior generations. Meanwhile, more and more companies are investing in supply-chain courses or short certificate programs for existing employees, seeking to bridge that information gap many firms found in their operations during 2020 and beyond. 

The University of Tennessee’s supply-chain management program registered its largest number of graduates from the school’s business college. Roughly 2,000 supply-chain management students matriculated in the undergraduate and graduate programs, something unheard of just ten years ago. Old Dominion University received state approval to launch its School of Supply Chain, Logistics, and Maritime Operations, and Concordia College and Virginia Commonwealth University are embarking on bachelor’s degree programs in supply-chain management due to the uptick in demand.  

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, projected hiring in logistics will balloon by 18% over the coming decade, far outpacing the average 3% growth over all job categories. Everything from procurement to sourcing to transportation has witnessed an explosion in popularity, and universities are rightly responding to these signals. 

It will remain to be seen if the momentum lasts. The pandemic certainly changed the world, but human beings have notoriously short memories.    

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