You Don’t Need College Anymore, Says Google

If you can earn $93k after taking a $300 course, then what’s the future of higher education?

(Source: Pixabay)

This week, Google announced new professional career certificates that can be completed in six months to help Americans obtain high growth job opportunities. They also signaled to jobseekers that they would treat these certificates, which require no prior experience of undergraduate credentials, as the equivalent of four-year degrees by their hiring managers.

For the beleaguered education sector which was already experiencing dwindling enrollment, a sluggish pace in curriculum development, lack of distance learning adoption, and high costs, the move by Google and employers may be the harbinger of digital disruption that is long overdue.

Google‘s new certification programs

On July 14th, Google launched new professional certification programs in data analysis, project management, and UX design, to be hosted on Coursera. Though the platform charges a monthly $49 fee, Google will provide 100,000 needs-based scholarships to cover costs and will be awarding over $10 million in grants to certain non-profits that partner with workforce development to women, veterans, and underrepresented Americans.

“In our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles.” — Google

Google lists the median annual wage of each career track with a high of $93,000 for the project management program. According to Google, 80% of learners that complete the IT Support Specialist certification either landed a new job or earned a raise. Prior experience and higher education are not required as a prerequisite for the courses. And, once completed, typically in three-to-six months, participants may have a crack at a job with the tech giant.

Kent Walker, Google senior vice president of corporate affairs announced via Twitter, that “in our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles.”