One hiring priority that has quickly emerged over the past year is that of the data analyst.

According to a recently released Dice.com Hiring Survey, those familiar with analytics are the fourth largest talent pool (within the tech segment) that recruiters and hiring managers were interested in (preceded by Java/J2EE Developers, Mobile Developers, and .NET Developers and followed by Software developers).

But where do you go to get the education and training required to become a big data analytics master? There is currently a rather sizable gap in big data talent, but colleges and universities are indeed offering programs now – from Northwestern to Drexel, MIT and Stanford – so there likely won’t be a shortage for long.

Ideally, any program chosen will address data holistically and within a business context, including predictive (forecasting), descriptive (business intelligence and data mining), and prescriptive (optimization and simulation) data analysis.