1/12/26
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The College of Engineering at Tennessee Tech University will launch a new Master of Science in Industrial and Systems Engineering (MS-ISE) to meet growing workforce demand across Tennessee’s manufacturing, logistics, healthcare and technology sectors, following approval by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) in November.
Designed for both working professionals and full-time students, the program will be offered on campus and online beginning in August 2026 and can be completed in as little as 18 months.
As a field that focuses on integrating people, technology, data and resources as a system, industrial and systems engineering is one of the fastest-growing engineering disciplines in the United States. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in the field is projected to grow 13.1 percent nationally, creating approximately 25,000 job openings annually—more than any other engineering field.
In Tennessee, growth is expected to exceed the national average due to the state’s strong presence in manufacturing, logistics and healthcare. In THEC’s Academic Supply for Occupational Demand Report in 2025, industrial engineers—or the skills they provide—are cited as in-demand across all nine of the state’s target industry clusters for business expansion, including food and agriculture, health and life sciences, automotive, aerospace and defense, and more. In a college survey of companies that recruit Tech engineering students, 42 percent reported hiring industrial engineers, and an additional 42 percent indicated they would be likely to interview graduates of the proposed program.
Despite this demand, Tennessee faces a shortage of trained industrial engineers. In the 2019–20 academic year, only 80 industrial engineering degrees (bachelor’s and master’s combined) were awarded statewide, while the state supported nearly 7,000 industrial engineering jobs. Tech’s new graduate program will be the only program in the state focusing on both systems engineering and industrial engineering.
Tech previously offered bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in industrial engineering, but both programs were terminated in 2012 and 2010, respectively. Because of the increase in demand since that time, the college chose to bring the discipline back to Tech—starting with a graduate program, rather than a bachelor’s degree program, to enable a faster response to workforce needs across the state, according to Slater.
The MS-ISE program is a 32-credit-hour program culminating in either a thesis or project, allowing students the flexibility for either research-focused or workplace-focused career goals. The curriculum emphasizes breadth across industrial and systems engineering, with depth in data analysis and modeling, along with coursework in engineering economics, human factors and project or engineering management.
For more information on the M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering program, visit www.tntech.edu/engineering
