Dive Brief:
- Udacity, which pivoted from MOOCs to professional development "nanodegrees" in 2014, now has 1,000 graduates.
- According to Re/code, most Udacity students take around seven months to complete their nanodegrees in technical fields like software development and engineering, and 150 of the graduates have found new jobs with the credential so far.
- Udacity has raised $55 million to date, and founder Sebastian Thrun reports it was profitable last year, providing money to reinvest in the company.
Dive Insight:
Udacity started out as a for-profit provider of massive open online courses just before Coursera, launching the MOOC revolution. The latter company has grown into a giant in the world of massive open online courses while Udacity shifted its focus, its founder disappointed in completion rates.
Udacity has since partnered with a number of tech companies, including Google, AT&T, Autodesk, and Cloudera, to create programs geared toward these companies’ hiring needs. Graduating with a nanodegree in Android development directly prepares students for a job with Google, for example. For those who believe the greatest value of higher education is job opportunity, it’s the perfect setup.
