Illinois Gies’ Latest Innovation: Stackable Degrees & Credentials

When Gies College of Business launched its innovative, highly disruptive online MBA in 2016, it did so with students like Eric Scott in mind.

The marketing and communications leader spent the lionshare of his career working in sports, with stints in media and public relations for the University of Northern Colorado, the University of North Florida, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the Jacksonville Armada, a professional soccer club. He’d thought about an MBA for nearly 15 years, but could never fit it into the growing demands of his work and family.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, he started thinking about it again after hearing about a friend’s experience getting an online master’s degree in analytics. He put his two-year-old daughter down for a nap and started researching. He came across University of Illinois’ Geis’ online MBA for $23,000.

“For me, cost was a major factor; I didn’t want to be in unmanageable debt for the rest of my life. Beyond that, I wanted something with a great reputation. I wanted the challenge of going to one of the top public schools in the country,” says Scott, now Chief Marketing Officer at MDM Commercial in Jacksonville, Florida.

Gies, it turned out, was just what he was looking for.

STACKABILITY: THE NEXT FRONTIER?

In early 2016, the University of Illinois’ Gies College of Business’ iMBA completely upended the online MBA market years before COVID propelled it into overdrive. It’s why Poets&Quants named it the business school innovation of the decade in 2020.

Since then, 61% of its iMBA students have earned a promotion, job offer, or new position. Enrollment has grown from just 116 students in January 2016 to more than 5,000. UI’s programs on Coursera, its online partner since the beginning, had a 73% year-on-year growth in underrepresented degree students in 2021.

Gies hasn’t stopped innovating. In its mission to democratize higher education through affordable, flexible, high-quality degrees, certificates, and other products, it is now investing big in stackability: Allowing students to roll previous courses and credentials into larger certificates and degrees.

“I do believe we’re differentiated when you think about our entire portfolio of stackability. I know of no other business school, and probably no other institution, where you can start with a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), stack a MOOC into a single course, a single course into a certificate, a certificate into a degree, and a degree into another degree,” says Brooke Elliott, associate dean and EY professor in the Gies College of Business.

“I think it’s that entire portfolio that is attractive and really differentiates what we do, all in a very affordable, flexible way.”

AN MSM TO iMBA PATHWAY

In August, Gies announced that graduates of its Masters of Science in Management (MSM) can now apply all 36 credit hours to its 72-hour iMBA degree – cutting MBA completion time in half while saving students both time and money. (Gies’ online MSM launched in 2020 for $11,520.) Students can continue the iMBA immediately after completion (though they will have to apply to get in) or return several years later with more professional experience under their belts.

“This is the first time in the history of the University of Illinois that a degree can stack into another degree, and it’s one of the very rare examples of this being done at any business school in the country,” Gies says on its website.

This spring and summer, Gies also launched three online, credit-bearing graduate certificates – Digital Marketing, Accounting Data Analytics and Strategic Leadership & Management – and has plans to launch up to five more within the next year. Each can be completed in 4 to 6 months and will be stackable into any of its three online degree programs: iMBA, iMSM, and Master of Science in Accountancy (iMSA).

From the beginning, Gies has partnered with Coursera to reach the explosive market of engaged online learners. Gies provides the content, faculty, and curriculum, Coursera provides the platform and scalability – more than 93 million online learners across the planet. Coursera has also introduced stackable microcredentials that provide credit.

“Since launching the first degree on Coursera seven years ago, Gies College of Business has continued to innovate and reimagine online education. Stackability began with courses and certificates, and now, with the iMSM and iMBA, students can stack full degrees into each other,” says Dr. Quentin McAndrew, academic strategist at Coursera. “I’m inspired by how these bold changes to make learning more flexible and accessible have impacted thousands of students worldwide, like Eric Scott.”

IMMEDIATE ROI

With his extensive work history, Scott was admitted to Gies’ iMBA program in 2021. He serves on the school’s iDegrees Student Councils, is an iDegrees Student Ambassador, and organized a student-led initiative called Winter Takeover to bring students together, on campus, in between the program’s popular iConverge gatherings each spring.

“I’m very impressed with how seamless its been to easily access the content and communicate with the professors and TAs,” Scott tells Poets&Quants. “There’s the live components, which I love, that are very interactive between the students and professors. Our breakout sessions are a great place to meet, network, and build relationships with classmates.”

Though he isn’t expected to graduate until May 2023, the degree has already paid dividends.

When he started the program, Scott was director of marketing at MDM Commercial. Shortly after announcing his intentions to earn his MBA to his boss, his boss offered to help with the program’s tuition, and enlisted Scott to help develop an official tuition reimbursement program at the company.

In April, about halfway through the program, Scott had “the talk” with his boss, a lesson he learned from the program about taking the reins of one’s own career advancement. He clearly outlined the skills and knowledge he’d acquired in his iMBA and how it directly related to his job at MDM. Scott was promoted to Chief Marketing Officer in May.

“It really played a key role not just in my skills in my own role and my ability to understand the whole business, but also in confidence,” Scott says. “A lot of people say this is life changing, and it definitely has been life changing for me. Beyond just the promotion, it’s given me a different perspective, the ability to be open minded, and given me a better understanding of the big picture.”

Poets&Quants wanted to learn more about Gies’ big bets on stackability. We recently sat down with Brooke Elliott, associate dean and EY professor in the Gies College of Business, to talk about the college’s continued innovation in its mission to democratize business education for students across the planet.

Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

NEXT PAGE: P&Q’s Q&A with Gies associate dean Brooke Elliott

In 2020, Poets&Quants named Gies’ iMBA the No. 1 business school innovation of the decade. Catch us up on what Gies has been doing since then in terms of innovation.

I think at that point in time, we recognized that we had really been a leader in transforming and disrupting the graduate business education space, and the primary disruption was launching an MBA degree that was very high quality for under $23,000. It was affordable, flexible, and we were able to serve a population that hadn’t been served. It’s now the fastest growing MBA program in the world.

We’ve continued to innovate from that point. We really started to think about how to build upon that program to ensure that we’re meeting our mission of expanding access to high quality graduate business education. We’ve made investments in expanding the portfolio of educational offerings that we provide, all with the intent of expanding access and creating flexible pathways to degree.

That’s really where we’ve been focused, and I think we’ve done it in a couple of a couple of different ways: One, we created the Campus Graduate Certificate, which in and of itself isn’t innovative. Other institutions have that type of credential. What’s innovative is we are basically creating a portfolio of graduate certificates that are already part of the existing degree programs — our fully online Master’s of Science and Management and our fully online Master’s of Business Administration.

Those programs are structured in three core sequences as well as focus areas specializations. What we’re doing is breaking apart the degree in those core areas and creating certificates. It’s a pathway for people who may not quite be ready to pursue a degree, or who maybe already have a graduate business degree, but they don’t have the specialized knowledge that we are offering.

We have also been very innovative from a content and curricular perspective. We have specializations in business analytics, in entrepreneurship and innovation, and we recently launched a brand new one around mergers and acquisitions. You can imagine that there are individuals who have completed a degree, but still have demand for that type of content. The key is that it is content that’s job relevant and also provides a stackable pathway into a degree.

Then we thought, in terms of ultimate stackability, about stackable degrees. We are partnered with Coursera, and we developed with Coursera this idea around a stackable degree. At our foundation, we have MOOCs that sit on the Coursera platform that are part of every one of our credit bearing courses. So, you can enroll as an open MOOC learner, you complete that MOOC and, if you would like to do more, you can apply as a non degree student, complete the high engagement portion of the course, and now you have credit. Now, you can take that single credit bearing course and stack it into a certificate, and then take that certificate and stack it into a degree. The next innovation is around actually creating stackability across degrees.

Now, we are at a place where our Master’s of Science in Management program is stackable into our Masters of Business Administration. From an academic institution perspective, the integrity of each credential is foundational to what we do. The MSM is really an entry level management degree, but it is a foundational portion of the MBA degree. What the MBA degree then does is layer on and allow you to dive deeper in specialized areas of content.

What kinds of students are you targeting?

What we wanted to do was provide a pathway for individuals who are maybe ready to pursue that basic Master’s in Management degree because that’s where they are from a professional perspective. Maybe they have two to three years experience, and they need that base business knowledge. They continue to either work for their current firm or they switch roles, and later they need something that’s a little bit different. We want to ensure that they are able to still receive credit for all that they learned in that Master’s in Management and fully stack it into an MBA.

We’re trying to create a portfolio of stackable offerings that serve a learner throughout their lifetime, and so that they never lose credit for the investment that they’ve made. And we believe that’s really important to learners right now.

When did you announce these stackable degrees?

We just announced that this semester, starting off in August. We’re working on other pathways to stack any Gies Master’s degree — residential or online — into an MBA.

What kind of response have you gotten so far?

Extremely positive.

I think that, historically, academic institutions haven’t been very flexible in the path that they have laid out for learners. Traditionally academic institutions have kind of dictated the idea that, “We know what you need and at what point you need it. Here is the path, follow it in a very linear way.”

At the Gies College of Business, and even at the University of Illinois, we’re shifting towards a learner-centric mindset. Everything that we do in developing new programs, thinking about our portfolio, thinking about affordability, flexibility, and pathways, is from the learner approach.

I think our learners have really started to recognize that holistic view, and they’re very appreciative. Many of our current MSM students are at a point in their careers where they are uncertain about an MBA, but they love that they now have the option, either immediately upon completing the MSM or at some point in the future, to exercise this. From a prospect perspective, we’ve already started to see increasing demand for the MSM just knowing that that option value is there.

I’m an academic, and in the finance literature, options have real value. I think it’s a place that will really differentiate us. There are great institutions and great business schools across the world, but what we hope is that if we provide that option for stackability and another institution doesn’t, then a learner would choose Gies.

NEXT PAGE: Is the online MBA market getting overcrowded? + Innovations for undergraduate business education

Are there other schools that you know of that are offering this level of stackability?

There are a few others, but it is not prevalent. Duke would be one — it does allow stackability of an MSM into their MBA now. Not in an as affordable a way.

I do believe we’re differentiated when you think about our entire portfolio of stackability. I know of no other business school, and probably no other institution, where you can start with a MOOC, stack a MOOC into a single course, a single course into a certificate, a certificate into a degree, a degree into another degree. I think it’s that entire portfolio that is attractive and really differentiates what we do, all in a very affordable, flexible way.

Since you first announced the Gies iMBA, the market has really exploded. And you’ve seen others follow in your footsteps: Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, for example, offered a $24K online MBA a couple of years ago. What is your assessment of the online market now? Is it getting crowded?

The online market has increased tremendously in terms of competitiveness. Poets&Quants wrote an article about how there are now more online MBA students than residential MBAs. We’ve seen explosive growth.

When we entered the market in 2016, we were the only MBA from a research one institution under $23,000. Right now, Boston University is the only other top institution in the market at that price point. As we’ve seen other peer institutions enter the market — whether it’s other big 10 institutions or even some of the M7 institutions — they’re not entering at an affordable price point. I mean, Wharton is going to launch an online MBA for $218,000, and there are individuals that are going to be willing to make that type of investment.

But in our space, where we think about affordable, flexible, high quality education, there are still very few players. I attribute that to a couple of things. One, we were a first mover. Two, and the biggest thing that I think allows us to be successful and keeps others from entering in the way that we have, is that it’s mission consistent. We are a land grant institution. We know why we’re doing it, and we believe in it. For most other institutions, that is not necessarily top of mind. It’s not at the core of who they are as the institution and who they’ve been for over 100 years, but it is for us.

Can you explain your partnership with Coursera?

It’s our content. It’s our faculty. It’s our degree. I always try to make that very clear. We host the high engagement portion of the content on our own campus; It’s the same degree that we’ve always offered at the University of Illinois, it’s just in a more flexible, affordable format.

At the same time, Coursera has been an outstanding partner. There are two things from a value perspective that they provide: One, they provide access to a platform with 90 million+ learners that have self selected; Those learners already have an inclination to pursue online education and have expressed an inclination for lifelong learning. When we think about the market that we’re trying to attract and the market that Coursera can bring, we’re very aligned.

Two, the reason we chose Coursera as a partner early on in 2016 is because we were mission aligned. Coursera started as providing free access to high quality educational content to serve learners from around the world. And that’s our mission as well. And so that’s allowed us to be a great partner. They provide tremendous value in terms of insights into that learner market, which has grown tremendously over the last five years: What content is most in demand for learners? What content is most career relevant? And what types of educational products in terms of duration, engagement, flexibility, are learners gravitating towards?

Are there any other Gies innovations that you’re developing now that we can tease out? Any innovations for the undergraduate or executive space?

We’re always trying to think about what’s coming next. I think part of it is just continuing to think about this portfolio of stackable educational products. You know, I think about the MOOC like bite-sized education, but I can imagine something coming before the MOOC, and we’re continuing to explore new educational offerings that would be both credit and non-credit bearing that would serve a learner throughout their lifetime. Not only, again, driving learners through a path towards a degree, but really serving learners on the other side of that degree.

We now have thousands of learners who are alums of our portfolio of online degrees, and we want to continue to serve that population. We recognize that an offering that is credit bearing might not always meet the needs of learners who need upskilling. We actually just created a brand new associate dean position in the Gies College of Business for professional education pathways. So, it’s pathways into our degrees, but also pathways outside of our degrees so that learners can continue to upskill with skills that are career relevant.

At Gies, we have undergraduate programs, graduate programs, and now professional education pathways is our third pillar from an academic perspective. That’s a huge shift for an academic institution to have a pillar that’s led by an associate dean that is not focused on degrees. It’s sending a real signal about how we’ve changed, how we continue to change, and how we intend to continue to expand the learners that we serve.

The next big thing, I think, that you’ll see from Gies is we’re starting to think about how we can use what we’ve learned in the graduate education space to start to transform what we do in the undergraduate education space. That is a much more heterogeneous market, but there is tremendous opportunity for us to think about how we serve learners, both within the College of Business and at the University of Illinois.

DON’T MISS: DEAN OF THE YEAR: JEFFREY BROWN OF GIES COLLEGE OF BUSINESS AND 2021 MOST DISRUPTIVE BUSINESS SCHOOL STARTUPS: NEPHRA, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS (GIES)

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