Google, PASSHE schools join to offer skills-ready certificates for tech jobs

Eric Scicchitano, The Daily Item, Sunbury, Pa.
·3 min read

Aug. 29—MILLERSVILLE — Pennsylvania's state-owned universities partnered with Google to offer the tech giant's career certification program, the first public-private venture of its kind in the commonwealth.

Google Career Certificates, an entirely online, non-credit offering, can be pursued in tandem with undergraduate courses, allowing students of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) the potential to land an entry-level job in their chosen career field while continuing studies toward a degree.

Participating in the initial phase are Commonwealth (Bloomsburg, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Clearfield), East Stroudsburg, Indiana, Kutztown, PennWest (California, Clarion, Edinboro), Millersville, Shippensburg and Slippery Rock universities.

Certificates concentrate on the fields of business intelligence, cybersecurity, data analytics, digital marketing & e-commerce, IT support, project management and user experience (UX) design.

"We listened to our students and we listened to their potential employers to ensure our students are getting the knowledge and skills they need for a life of success and to build a strong pipeline for talent in Pennsylvania," Cynthia Shapira, PASSHE Board of Governors chairwoman, said at a press conference Tuesday at Millersville University.

An estimated 85,000 students attend PASSHE schools. In-state tuition is frozen for a sixth straight year at $7,716. The state system received $585.6 million in the latest state budget, an increase of $108 million since 2021-22.

The program is open to the public through PASSHE schools and also nonprofits including YMCA, allowing non-students to reinforce existing skills or learn new skills as they seek a career change. The cost is $49 monthly.

The announced partnership arrives as the tech industry has been subject to major layoffs since last year including at Google, Amazon and Meta. Online tech industry news sites have reported extensively about the cuts, with the publication TechCrunch reporting that as of last week, there were more than 224,000 tech-industry job cuts in 2023.

The cuts span job sectors from sales and marketing to software engineering. The layoffs have slowed, according to oft-cited tracker Layoffs.fyi, with the count dropping in each successive month since January.

According to Google, the certificates take 3 to 6 months to complete and could apply to an estimated 2.4 million jobs with a median starting salary of $76,000. Mark Isakowitz, Google's vice president of Government Affairs and Public Policy, said 75% of certificate graduates earn a new job, promotion or raise within six months of completion.

Benefits include access to an employer consortium of more than 150 companies, including Bayer, SAP and Google itself which has a 900-employee office in Pittsburgh. The firms committed to considering certificate holders for open positions.

Gov. Josh Shapiro talked up the partnership as another effort indicative of his administration's focus on workforce development. He noted the potential for bipartisan agreement on "commonsense issues" in saying his administration will in the coming months unveil proposed reforms to higher education that will need the approval of the General Assembly.

"We need to make sure we craft a blueprint for higher ed focused on competitiveness, focused on workforce development, and grounded in access and affordability for all," Shapiro said during his remarks at the press conference.