Google’s IT support certificate course will now be offered at 100 community colleges. Here’s how administrations have been using it so far.
Google’s foray into education and workforce development is expanding, with the announcement that the company’s IT support professional certificate program will now be offered at 100 community colleges over the course of the year, up from the original 30.
The program is an online course, designed by Google and hosted on Coursera, meant to teach the basics of IT support, with the goal of preparing learners for a job. In promotional materials Google says the creation of the course in January 2018 was catalyzed when the company could not fill its many open IT support roles.
With the IT certificate, Google is one of numerous big corporate players to introduce its own credentials into the postsecondary education and training ecosystem. While powerful economic players like Google have the potential to compete with traditional institutions, Google, like many, is choosing to collaborate instead, potentially extending higher education’s reach rather than threatening the degree.
The median salary for a computer user support specialist was $50,980 in May 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The occupation is projected to grow faster than the average rate for U.S. jobs.