Bowdoin is partnering with HBX, the online education program at Harvard Business School, to offer students the opportunity to participate in its Credential of Readiness (CORe) program. This adds to the handful of business and finance programs that have been offered to Bowdoin students. However, according to Foster, what sets this partnership apart is that it allows students to apply for need-based financial aid.
If a Bowdoin student applies to HBX and applies for financial aid, HBX will contact Bowdoin’s Student Aid Office. Aid for HBX will be equivalent to what a student receives from Bowdoin.
Full price for the CORe program is $1,800. According to Foster, financial aid could lower the cost to as little as $300.
The program is comprised of three courses—Business Economics, Economics for Managers and Financial Accounting—that do not count for credit at Bowdoin.
Foster stressed that the skills learned through the programs like CORe can be applied outside of just business or finance fields.
“This set of skills—whether it’s accounting, business analytics—this is all a set of skills that students can develop that they can broadly apply,” he said. “You don’t have to go into a business vocation.”
Bowdoin has partnered with business schools and programs in the past, and students have attended the Tuck Business Bridge Program at Dartmouth and Middlebury’s MiddCore during summers.
In January 2013 and 2014, representatives from the Fullbridge business and finance program came to the College to hold sessions on campus for Bowdoin students. In the spring of 2015, the economics department offered a financial accounting class in conjunction with the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. According to Interim Dean for Academic Affairs Jennifer Scanlon, the course is undergoing a full review this fall, and the soonest that it will be offered again would be fall 2016.