Corporate Partnerships Playing a Role in Employee Online Education

Corporate employees who are hitting the glass ceiling are finding distance learning to be a boon in their efforts to boost their academic credentials. According to the Wall Street Journal, increasing numbers of professionals are pursing online options that provide that needed boost up the management ladder.

As one might expect from the WSJ, one of the premier aspects of online continuing education for professionals is the "cachet" (their word) of obtaining an educational certificate from a premier, traditional university. The article cites one business professional's experience: having no time to complete an MBA degree program, a project management consultant in Eugene Oregon enrolled in a business certificate program through eCornell, the Ivy League University's online division. Upon completing the certificate program, he declared that "??Everyone knows Cornell University."

In passing, the Journal mentions the fact that 60% of its online enrollments for certificate programs come through partnerships with corporations. That shows an excellent marketing effort on the part of a premier university to promote its new, revenue-generating department.

It's also important to note, however, that the program eCornell offers is a graduate certificate program and not a degree. That is the approach they've taken with all of their online offerings to date; they are easing into the distance learning business by holding back on the degree programs that can only be had on campus.

An additional, popular choice through eCornell is their hospitality management degree program, except that it too is offered in certificate form. The school sees the certificate option as a method for "non-degree students" (meaning online enrollees) to connect with professors from the full time program.

Tulane, Villanova, the University of California at Berkeley and Boston University have similar certificate programs, many of which have corporate connections that provide continuing education prospects and often, pay for a portion of the cost. The happy union of corporate sponsorship, premier school options and the need for continuing educational development at the corporate level is a laudable trend.

However the question remains as to whether a certificate from Penn State holds the same academic value as a business administration degree from Kaplan University or another established, accredited online school. It's likely that for some new employers, a degree from an accredited school holds as much value or more than a certificate from one of the traditional "premier" schools.