Companies Head Back to College

The article examines four training outsourcing initiatives, each with a distinctively different market approach. They include a Midwestern community college with a global focus, a public institution skilled in high-tech learning, a major university exploiting ties to its business school and a prominent for-profit university. Each of the four contends, no doubt justifiably, that its business plan is unique in the nascent field of academic-based workforce learning. Behind each initiative is a clear plan to overcome perceived shortcomings of academic-based workforce training, especially the "ivory tower" issues of being disconnected from the needs of business and cutting edge trends. Emphasized instead are the distinct advantages, valuable expertise, credibility of content, ability to provide academic credit and the appeal of a "branded" training partner. Yet in the rapidly changing space of executive education, one academic organization stresses a key distinction between itself and some consulting firms in the field.