LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The University of Nebraska-Lincoln will begin offering a bachelor of science in software engineering.

The University of Nebraska Board of Regents approved the new degree Friday. The approval makes UNL the first Big Ten university to offer the major to undergraduates.

The program will be housed in the College of Engineering’s department of computer science and engineering and offered at the Lincoln campus.

There are 22 software engineering programs in the United States, according to the regents’ research, and the need for specialists is rising. Labor statistics predict a 22 percent growth in the need for bachelor-level software engineers by 2022.