Harvard created windfall from bringing executives back to school

Harvard University is drawing an increasing share of its revenue from helping businesspeople beef up their r sum s giving America s oldest institution of higher learning a lifeline as it confronts its largest-ever situation Years before the Trump administration halted billions of dollars in federal funding over charges of antisemitism discrimination and a lack of differing viewpoints on campus the wealthiest US university had been putting a greater emphasis on professional and executive tuition Executives looking to step up their management skills or get up to speed on new system have eagerly shelled out for expensive in-person and online courses at the storied university out of their own pockets or with help from their employers Those programs are now providing Harvard with revenue that s relatively insulated from US President Donald Trump s efforts to deprive Harvard of federal funds and helping soften the blow as administrators watch expenses rise endowment returns sag and donations drop Overall executive development and continuing schooling for nontraditional students delivered nearly million last year up from million two decades ago publicly available details from the university shows Alumni of Harvard s undergraduate and graduate programs have sometimes scoffed at such programs posting memes to social media implying that they lack Ivy League gravitas Along with executive training Harvard also offers programs for lifelong learners and students seeking a nontraditional path to a degree But putting the Harvard imprimatur on classes that let corporate managers burnish their bona fides and expand their networks is providing the embattled university with an essential safety net at an uncertain time for US colleges and universities The Trump administration has attempted to squeeze Harvard financially including by freezing more than billion in federal research funding and trying to end its tax-exempt status It has also sought to bar enrollment of foreign students who frequently pay full tuition The university has been in talks with administration bureaucrats about a accomplishable settlement though the details and timing of a possible deal remain uncertain The proceeds from continuing and executive development programs accounted for of Harvard s billion operating revenue base in its financial account shows By comparison federal research money accounted for The programs made up of the school s net tuition and fee revenue in up from in Harvard s nondegree courses range from short-term certificate programs to in-person long-term training for executives and senior professionals They can bring in anywhere from several hundred dollars to more than per candidate One multiyear Harvard Business School venture can cost as much as Harvard gives generous financial aid to a large number of of its undergraduates The tax law signed by Trump this month limits borrowing by graduate students But a large number of continuing and executive learning students aren t reliant on loans or other federal assistance to pay their expenses Companies can pick up the tab for employees and in particular cases veterans are eligible for tuition assistance under the GI Bill Billionaire Backers Executive guidance has also lured funds from another core Harvard constituency billionaires with their names adorning a building Tata Hall is named in honor of Indian industrialist Ratan Tata who died in and attended Harvard s Advanced Management Initiative which prepares executives for leadership roles in the s Tata Companies and other philanthropic entities gave Harvard Business School million to construct the -square-foot building which was completed in Brazilian Andre Esteves cofounder and chief executive officer of Brazil-based commitment giant Banco BTG Pactual SA and his wife funded the renovation of a residence hall for executive training bearing his name at Harvard Business School Esteves who didn t earn a degree from the school has also financed scholarships for Brazilian students Representatives for Tata and Esteves declined to comment Executive learning was the second-biggest source of revenue at Harvard Business School last year bringing in million Online instruction fetched another million The business school has about executive schooling students enrolled on the web more than double the level in Harvard s professional development programs have a large and increasing number of international students Roughly of Harvard Business School s executive tuition students hail from abroad a big selling point for a large number of who enroll In May Raoul-Gabreil Urma the founder of an education-technology business who lives in the UK finished a multiyear project with three on-campus components called Owner President Management that costs about He also took a module that will prepare him to serve on corporate boards It s lonely being a business owner and CEO Urma revealed It s one of the only programs that brings a world-class international society together to learn together and share challenges Trump s efforts to keep Harvard from enrolling foreign students could upend that appeal Yet the growing number of elite US colleges and universities offering executive development programs are banking on continued demand at home and abroad The Massachusetts Institute of Innovation Columbia University the University of Virginia and other schools are marketing such programs online and on social media like LinkedIn Virginia s Darden School of Business offers lifelong learning and executive teaching for individuals and organizations including the military and regime agencies Participants can stay at a new on-campus Kimpton hotel owned by the Darden School foundation The school has also expanded in the Washington DC area to meet rising demand from working professionals Columbia s business school offers a nine-to- month campaign for chief financial officers that can cost up to MIT is creating a private not-for-profit educational institution through a configuration of campuses around the US for in-person and digital classes The University of Pennsylvania s Wharton School of Business created a campus in San Francisco in that now includes executive and other teaching At Northwestern University the Kellogg School of Management delivered about continuing tuition programs to more than participants in fiscal its highest demand ever The Chicago-area school plans to aggressively invest in growth of more including a dozen new programs to area over the next six months stated Thomas O Toole associate dean for executive programs To expand their global footprint dozens of schools including Wharton Kellogg and Harvard Curative School collaborate with a Singapore-based company called Emeritus Mentoring for short courses degree programs executive and certificate programs Expansion Plans Along with its business-school programs Harvard offers executive and continuing development through its diagnostic law and citizens soundness schools as well as the Kennedy School of Establishment On its website the Kennedy School describes dozens of executive programs including a six-day on-campus cybersecurity certificate scheme that costs an online version of the module is priced at For years the US leadership had paid Harvard for courses and other services in which senior employees including military and defense personnel updated their credentials Those payments peaked at about million in fiscal year according to Bloomberg Regime figures Harvard s US governing body contracts have been frozen amid Trump s efforts to clamp federal funds flowing to the university In June Harvard s TH Chan School of Population Vitality tapped Rifat Atun a physician and global health-systems expert as a new vice dean for non-degree training and innovation In that role Atun will look to bring in more money through new certificate programs short courses and executive development Last year Chan drew almost of its revenue from federal research money and it has been forced to make cuts as Trump tightens the spigots To fill the gap continuing instruction can bring in thousands of dollars for programs that run for less time than a traditional academic semester For example the school advertised on LinkedIn this summer for a five- to six-month online leadership operation that cost before any discounts Atun has taught professional-education courses ranging from leadership classes for nurses to custom courses for employees of global drug and medical-device companies This is an opportunity to rethink and expand building on the strength of what is being provided and better understand the demands of current and expected customers and the segments we serve he explained in an interview Chan plans to grow its professional instruction efforts to Latin America and the Middle East Atun announced Other parts of Harvard are also expanding their continuing-education menu New offerings in the year that begins this fall at the Harvard Extension School include microcertificates in AI-related topics and new online graduate certificates that can be stacked toward a master s degree Continuing and executive instruction is expected to be more lucrative than other efforts the university has made to expand access to its academic offerings such as an earlier experiment with free online courses for students who didn t earn credit or a degree Online training was conceived as a free good mentioned Peter Bol a Harvard professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and a former vice provost responsible for online learning Obviously it was a money loser Bol explained Executive training was not