PE Licensing

Alternate Pathways to the PE: How States Vary in Their Engineering Education Licensure Requirements

For many decades now, the NCEES Model Law has indicated that the recommended educational requirement for licensure as a professional engineer is a baccalaureate degree in engineering from a program accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission (EAC) of ABET, “or equivalent.” The interpretation of the “or equivalent” has been a state-by-state determination, and in some cases an applicant-by-applicant determination. Historically, the “or equivalent” has been most applicable in its application to degrees from universities in foreign countries that have been evaluated to determine the approximate equivalence to a BS degree from an EAC/ABET program. Some jurisdictions have also used the “or equivalent” clause to deal with a variety of domestic “equivalents.”

In addition to the case-by-case determination of equivalence, many states have adopted alternate pathways to licensure over the years. Some of these provisions are relics of the early days of licensure when pathways to licensure were provided for those without degrees, and some of these loopholes have not been closed since. Other states have legislated specific licensure pathways for those with technology rather than engineering education, and for those with science rather than engineering degrees.

The current alternate pathways to licensure can be found in the table below. This information needs a HUGE CAVEAT. IT MAY NOT BE COMPLETELY ACCURATE. The information was extracted from an NCEES licensure board survey, the results of which are available at www.ncees.org. From a review by a handful of people to date, it has been shown to be inaccurate in some circumstances, as, so far, three states indicated to have no alternate pathways indeed had significant alternate pathways in their statutes. Those have been corrected. Others may need similar correction. Four jurisdictions had not responded to the published survey, so their information isn’t available. One other caveat is necessary: For those states that do not have any alternate pathways to licensure other than a degree from an EAC/ABET accredited program, some may have traditions of interpreting the “or equivalent” clause in different ways. So, there may exist in practice some manner of additional “flexibility” that might not be apparent from statutes and rules. Despite this table’s likely inaccuracy for some specific states, it does present an overall view of current alternate pathways to licensure.

What does this information show? About 2/3 of states provide an alternate pathway to licensure for those with baccalaureate degrees from programs accredited by the Technology Accreditation Commission (TAC) of ABET. Most of these programs require additional engineering experience, ranging from 5 to 12 years. More than 2/3 of states provide an alternate pathway for those with science rather than engineering degrees, and again, most of these require additional engineering experience, from 6 to 12 years. Eight states still have alternate pathways for candidates without any degree, with experience requirements ranging from 4 to 25 years. In at least several of these states, PE board members have not been able to recall an instance when a new licensee without any degree was provided an initial license in the last several decades. These “no-degree” loopholes are not commonly used, at least in some of the few states where these remain.

None of these alternate pathways to licensure are included in the Model Law, and engineers who are licensed through these alternate pathways do not necessarily receive comity licensure in other jurisdictions. In recent years, the PEs with national mobility are those who are Model Law Engineers and who maintain a Council Record through NCEES. These engineers receive expedited comity in many jurisdictions, and thus have enhanced mobility. None of the PEs licensed by the alternate pathways described herein are Model Law Engineers, and they do not benefit from enhanced mobility.

These alternate pathways have existed for many decades. It is the decision of individual states whether or not to provide alternate pathways, and more often than not it is a decision of the legislature, based on lobbying from those with alternate qualifications. As each state considers changes to its statute and rules to modify qualifications required for licensure, this is the landscape from which the consideration of those modifications begins.