“Grading Google’s Certificates”

The March 18 issue of the Open Campus newsletter mentioned JFF’s role in the Google IT Support Professional Certificate program.

A short article assessing the status of the Google certificate program three years after it was launched noted that Google partnered with JFF to establish a network of community colleges that offer the certificate, with a goal of helping adult students prepare for rewarding jobs in IT that don’t require a college degree.

The article, titled “Grading Google’s Certificates,” went on to cite JFF research that showed that 2,902 of the 4,497 total students enrolled in the Google IT Support Professional Certificate program at community colleges had completed at least one course and 1,325 had completed all five courses required to earn the certificate.

Open Campus noted that those completion rates higher than the typical completion rates of massive open online courses (MOOC) and indicate that the certificate program is “helping to establish a viable on-ramp to IT” careers for people who want to acquire baseline technical skills.