Treasure Valley students and residents this fall will have an opportunity to take classes from Harvard Business School without leaving Idaho. Boise State University and the famed Ivy League school announced a new partnership Thursday.
In what the two schools are calling an immersion class, Boise State students and members of the public can sign up for a 12-week course. It will mostly consist of online courses from HBX, Harvard Business School’s online arm. But it will also have some live classes at Boise State. It will teach the fundamentals of business analytics, economics for managers and financial accounting.
The course will cost $2,500 for non-students. Those who complete it get Harvard Business School’s “Credential of Readiness,” or CORe . The CORe program is designed to prepare non-business majors to work in the business world. People can sign up for CORe on their own through Harvard for $1,800. But Boise State’s dean of the College of Innovation and Design, Gordon Jones, says the new collaboration will offer more.
“The marriage of both local insight because of that in person class here in Boise that Boise State is running with the global perspective that a Harvard Business School online course produces,” Jones says.
Jones, who came to Boise State from Harvard last year, says he’s been talking with a lot of Boise business leaders about this class and Harvard’s credential.
“Instantly people say, ‘I get it,’” Jones says. “Harvard Business School’s assessment on this combined with Boise State bringing relevance to the local area, that means something to them. Harvard’s very much adamant that this is a standard that only those that demonstrate fluency will achieve.”
This is the first time Harvard Business School has partnered with a public university to offer such a course, though the CORe program has partnerships with some well-known private colleges.
Find Adam Cotterell on Twitter @cotterelladam
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