The Corporate College: Why the University of Google will become more in demand than Harvard.
And we’re back! I held off from sending the newsletter last Monday as I was hoping everyone was enjoying the last unofficial day of summer. My question: if summer never really started, does it really need to end?
In this week's newsletter I’m going to focus on the advent of the Corporate College and why:
The University of Google will be in higher demand than Harvard.
How Corporate Colleges will challenge the viability of traditional universities as more large companies develop training programs and offer them for pennies on the dollar.
Why being a graduate of FAANG U will have a far greater ROI than an IVY league education.
Wondering where the interview is? I’ll be back next week with a new profile.
As always, please let me know what you think of this week's topic!
Why do we go to college? To learn? To make friends? To prove that we can make it through a rigorous 4 year program? To get a job? Or is it simply the right thing to do? Traditionally, what drives us to higher education is some combination of all these factors. But in a world where tuition fees have skyrocketed into the unfathomable, on-campus learning isn’t possible, and there is a greater diversity of ways to build local communities, what keeps us coming back?
This week I am taking my turn exploring the unbundling of education, and specifically what the impact will be on the traditional 4-year university model with the advent of new options for adult/higher education. My conclusion: Without a stronger connection between learning and work, Corporate College will soon be the preferred choice for students over the well endowed, but often unaccountable, traditional university.
Who is the College Student
When you hear the words “college student,” you probably picture a fresh faced 18-year-old leaving the nest for the first time, dropped off by crying parents at their overpriced and underwhelming dorm room. In reality, the average age of a full-time US college student in 2019 was just short of 22 years old, and an average of 27 years old for part-time students. In addition, approximately 4 in 10 college students are enrolled part-time, often balancing work and family commitments while studying. However, the total number of students both working and studying is closer to 7 in 10. The trend of parallel full-time enrollment and full-time work is on the rise and more students than ever before are in school 30+ hours a week while simultaneously working a 40-hour week.
What’s the Cost
The price of higher ed has grown exponentially over the last 50 years, exceeding both inflation and wage growth. While quality, arguably, has remained the same. I think we’re all familiar, at least anecdotally, with the student debt crisis that exists in America. This year alone the outstanding student loan debt is $1.6 TRILLION owed by 44.7 million borrowers.
What’s the Alternative
Google and Microsoft training programs are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential for corporate education programs (aka Corporate Colleges). It is simply a matter of time before the average college student decides that the route of a Corporate College makes way more sense than a traditional 4-year degree. Here’s why:
The Price (and time) is Right: The average cost of a 4-year degree (including tuition, fees, room, and board) was $122,000 this last year. The average student leaves university with $32,731 in debt, and the average salary of a first job is $48,400. By contrast, the recently announced Google Career Certificates six-month long program is estimated to cost ~$300 (based on similar programming already offered). Upon completion, the certificate bearer will gain access to jobs in fields with a median average annual salary of over $50,000. Corporate Colleges will also provide students the ability to break down their time commitment into shorter blocks, enabling them to strategically invest 6 months every 5 years to learn new skills (over the course of a forty year career), rather than four years up-front followed by forty years of work.
Continued Shift to Distance Learning: COVID has forced us into remote learning several years before we anticipated we’d demand it. Traditional universities have struggled to keep pace, overloading their IT departments with requests for more bandwidth, and expecting teachers to manage ransomware attacks. Even more disastrous is their incapacity to adjust pedagogy and methodology in response to the demands of distance learning, being little more capable than moving the offline experience online. One outspoken NYU professor put it bluntly, “remote learning has turned college for some into ‘the world’s most expensive streaming service.” Most large companies (tech-centric or not) are already set up for large scale video-conference based interaction.
The Brand Name is Stronger: No disrespect to Middle Tennessee State University but a degree from Apple or Amazon U will hold greater weight in the eyes of employers. For one, both the companies offering the certificate and businesses using the aforementioned company’s services, will know that the student was trained in the exact skills required to perform the task at hand (rather than needing additional training once hired).
Learn from the Makers: Who better to teach a degree in Growth Marketing than the person/teams building the growth marketing tools? Picture the lead of Facebook Ads teaching Intro to Social Media Marketing. Imagine the head of Creator Content at YouTube teaching Video Production 101.
And who is largely building the growth marketing tools of today? Millennials, who now occupy the largest percentage of the workforce. And yes, despite having “day jobs'' millennials want to also give back. Deloitte’s Global Millennial Survey 2020 affirmed that the pandemic has only reinforced millennials’ desire to help drive positive change in their communities and around the world. Some of these employees will want to teach, and others won’t. But those who want to give back, provide mentorship, or simply improve their communication skills, will lean in.
Adaptability of the Curriculum: A lot goes into a curriculum change at a traditional university (how resources are allocated, the work schedule of professors, how many graduate students a department can fund, etc). A company like LinkedIn knows the types of skills recruiters are looking for in real time. With the ability to leverage daily job postings and search data to constantly evolve a class or program, Corporate Colleges can ensure students are being taught those skills most in-demand. Furthermore, given that many emphasize A/B testing as part of their corporate culture, Corporate Colleges have a leg up in terms of testing new learning methods and launching new protocols.
Priority Access to Recruitment Pipelines: Companies will begin to positively weigh the candidate who completes one of their corporate degrees higher than the one that hasn’t. If a hiring manager is faced with a credentialed applicant who knows how to work with their products (hard skills), understands the corporate culture (soft skills), and/or can problem solve using the methods prioritized by their team (critical thinking), they will feel more comfortable hiring that applicant.
As the divide grows larger between education and employment, universities of all shapes and sizes are in trouble. Without a greater emphasis placed on ensuring a student’s tuition investment will benefit them post college, traditional universities won’t be able to justify the astronomical fees they charge. My bet is on the Googles, WalMarts, and Visas of the world playing a larger role in higher education, as the average student will find more value in completing a 6-month Corporate College degree every 5-7 years rather than obtaining a traditional 4-year degree.
After School Activity
Please reach out if your company has or is thinking about developing a corporate degree, or reach out if you yourself have completed a corporate degree. I’d love to learn about the experience!