Adam Braun, CEO and co-founder of MissionU, says he
believes traditional higher education is “broken.” While employers may not
stretch that far in their assessment, the fact is some high-profile companies
see a college education as less necessary or relevant today. Some, such as
Google, have removed a college diploma as a requirement for hiring.
Braun’s MissionU doesn’t require a high school diploma
for admission and charges no upfront tuition for its nondegree program in
business intelligence and data analytics. Instead, through a profit-sharing
agreement, students only pay MissionU 15% of their salary for three years once
they make $50,000 or more per year; if a student fails to reach that salary
threshold within seven years they’re absolved of any debt to the company.
During the one-year program, MissionU students take
online classes and work on project assignments for employer partners such as
Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Chegg, and Bonobos. Six weeks of the program are devoted
to training for the job-interview process and salary negotiation.
Available undergraduate majors are business, arts and
humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and computational sciences.
There is also a graduate track to earn a master of science degree in applied
analyses and decision-making. MissionU began accepting applications for its
first sessions in March.
Launched
in 2014, Minerva Schools at KGI is a nonprofit, accredited four-year university
founded as a partnership between the Minerva Project and Keck Graduate
Institute, a member of the Claremont University Consortium. Courses are online,
but students also move around the world as they study, undertaking assignments
at companies and organizations in Germany, South Korea, Taiwan, India,
Argentina, and Britain, as well as in the U.S.
Some critics question
whether science can be taught online-only, without labs, or whether employers
will seriously consider job candidates coming from programs that don’t yet have
an established brand or proven track record. However, if more companies drop
the sheepskin from their hiring requirements, that may become less of an issue.
