Self-driving cars still need humans _ to program them

Auto and tech companies are in a race to get self-driving cars to the public, but as with many cutting-edge technologies, there aren't enough trained engineers to meet the demand for talent.

So the online higher education company Udacity created a "nanodegree" to train self-driving car engineers.

Udacity is founded by Sebastian Thrun, whose previous work included launching Google's self-driving car prototype.

Thrun says that given industry's push to get the technology on the road, it will be easy to get jobs for 5,000 future graduates, and likely many more.

Applications for the program opened Monday, and Udacity says more than 3,000 people have applied for the 250 spots.

The course will last nine months, and though learning is online, students will write computer code for Udacity's own self-driving car.