The End of 4-year Universities
Imagine the ability to receive a 4-year university degree for $234 in six months and being able to land a $60k salary right after graduation. Sounds like a dream right? The average cost of college tuition in the United States is $35,720 per student per year excluding room & board. How can a school offer something this cheap and effective? Welcome to Google (yes the tech company). Google is offering certificate courses on coursera.org, which their hiring staff considers an equivalent to a 4-year university degree. Google offers courses in IT, data analytics, project management, and UX design that require about 10 hours a week for six months that are included in coursera’s $39/mo subscription. Across these roles, Google claims an average salary of $63,300 for entry roles and an 82% positive career impact within six months after completing their course.
With student debt at all time highs in the US, and the average college debt among student loan borrowers at $32,731, this google course seems like a viable education alternative to the traditional college route. The pandemic has accelerated the trend of a decrease in college enrollment (see below) as students do not feel the benefits of a college education outweigh the time put in and financial debt incurred.
Courses and certificate programs like Google’s may pave the future for further education, especially if larger companies begin offering and accepting certificate programs equal to a college degree. Other tech giants such as Amazon and Apple already offer hyper-focused courses such as Amazon web services and Swift coding training and it may be only a matter of time until they offer a broader certificate program as recognized as Google’s.
An education system like this can truly provide equality for job applicants as $234 is extremely affordable. Google and companies alike are creating a future where students no longer have to fear student loans, trudge through 4 years of curriculum unrelated to profession, or have large amounts of generational wealth to get a high quality education in order to obtain the highest paying jobs. Universities should be taking notes.
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