AN ANALYSIS OF DEGREE PROGRAMS OFFERED BY SELECTED INDUSTRIAL CORPORATIONS.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the scope of degree-granting programs offered by selected United States industrial corporations. A sample was selected randomly from those corporations with five thousand or more employees listed in the 1980 Fortune Double 500. The sample was stratified by industrial type and number of employees. Data were collected through a mail questionnaire sent to specified corporate officers of 330 corporations. Of the 223 responses received, six were not usable for a variety of reasons. The return of 217 questionnaires from the remaining 324 yielded a response rate of 66.97 percent. The questionnaire was formulated according to the research questions posed in the study and was designed to encourage response from corporate personnel. A case study approach was employed to compare the curricula of corporate-sponsored degree programs with traditional collegiate programs. The corporate degree programs analyzed were associate's degree in electronic engineering technology and bachelor's degree in computer science for business (DeVry Institute of Technology, Bell and Howell Education Group), master of software engineering (Wang Institute of Graduate Studies, Wang Laboratories), and the bachelor's degree programs offered by General Motors Institute in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, and industrial administration. The following five items highlight the results and conclusions of this study: (1) One corporation reported offering four degree programs; five more corporations planned to establish a combined total of nine more degree programs within the next few years. (2) It can be anticipated that within the next five years, eight industrial corporations plan to offer a combined total of nineteen college-level degree programs. (3) The corporate degree programs in existence or being planned tended to be in engineering, computer science, and management. (4) Curriculum analyses of corporate degree programs revealed in this study indicated that these programs were comparable to traditional collegiate programs in most respects. (5) Over one-quarter of the respondents indicated that the corporation either participated with local postsecondary institutions to provide educational opportunities for their employees or had tuition-assistance plans for employees.