Microsoft Professional Program Gets New Tracks and Cost

Source: MicrosoftLast Fall, Microsoft launched a Microsoft Professional Program with a series of seven courses and a capstone project in Data Science in partnership with MOOC provider edX.org. Last Friday, the software giant announced a slew of changes and additions to the program are coming, including a doubling of the cost. Details are still sketchy, but what we do know Keith Boyd said in "Evolution and Updates to the Microsoft Professional Program (MPP)." Here are the details we have.

Big Numbers for MPP Courses at edX

So far, "nearly 40,000 learners" have enrolled in the MPP in Data Science at edX, with more than 700 graduates now having completed the entire curriculum with verified credit, including the challenging capstone project at its culmination. Boyd quotes Sasha Norkin, edX vice president of marketing and communications, saying that "more than a million learners [have] enrolled in Microsoft courses" there. She goes onto say that they are keenly aware that "there is high-demand for technology and job-readiness skills." Thus it looks like the MPP program is off to a flying and fabulous start.

MORE: Microsoft Certification Guide: Overview and Career Paths

Tuition Jumps from $49 to $99 per MPP Course, Schedule Made More Predictable

To accommodate the influx of learning, Microsoft is working with edX to put MPP courses on a quarterly schedule. Starting on July 1, 2017, those courses will run in three month quarters: July – September and October – December in 2017, and January – March and April – June in 2018. The final capstone project will also run for the first four weeks of each quarter, to give those who've finished the lead-in courses time to sign up for and complete that concluding curriculum requirement.

Starting March 28, a new course on statistics will be introduced into the data science curriculum entitled Essential Statistics for Data Analysis Using Excel. It replaces the previous course offering entitled Statistical Thinking for Data Science and Analytics created at Columbia University. Students in the sequence who've already completed that course can still count it toward overall program completion; those who've yet to start the sequence or have not taken that course must take the new one instead.

The Developing Intelligent Solutions item is also getting a makeover: Developing Intelligent Apps and Bots is being dropped as of July 1, 2017, and a course on Analyzing Big Data with Microsoft R Server will be added to replace it sometime soon (exact dates are not yet available). The capstone project at the end of the course sequence is also to get a makeover that will be rolled out in July 2017 as well.

Going forward, Microsoft is raising tuition for MPP courses from their original level of $49 per item to $99 per item. Boyd says this reflects "consideration of the value the MPP program and Microsoft courses bring to learners' careers, and to better support curriculum development and program enhancements." At $49, the price for verified completion reports was a steal; at $99 it become merely an incredibly good deal (where else can professionals get training like this for under $800?). There has been some grousing from students already enrolled, which Microsoft has quashed nicely by offering discounts to those already taking courses to continue their $49 deal going forward. New enrollees will have to suck up the difference, however (and I don't think it's overly punitive).

New Tracks A'Comin

Microsoft also plans to introduce two new tracks to the MPP program for a June launch (to start in the July quarter, one presumes). Here's what Boyd says about the Big Data and Front End Web Development tracks on their way to June launch:

• Big Data: With data being collected at ever increasing rates, it is on its way to becoming the currency of the next generation of business. This track will teach the skills required to design the systems that capture, process, and analyze big data.
• Front End Web Development: The code for every website and web application was written by a front-end web developer. This track will focus on programming languages, standards, libraries and frameworks ranging from HTML, CSS and JavaScript, to Angular, Bootstrap and jQuery.

I'll be watching for more details on the number of courses involved and the overall program costs. This is pretty tantalizing, though, and shows that Microsoft Is serious about extending MPP into other high-demand areas to make sure that a ready supply of trained-up IT professionals will be available to work in these niches and keep the wheels of industry and progress turning.

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