Newsweek: Rise of the corporate college

CORPORATE LEARNING

Big companies are setting up university campuses all over the world to help produce the kinds of employees they most need.

Sending an aspiring scholar off to college is a cherished rite of passage in Western households. But in the global economy, where companies rise or fall on brainpower, higher education has taken on broader meaning and new urgency. Corporate HydroPower University in Moscow teaches plant managers how to wield turbine technology and rotor dynamics to deliver power efficiently to millions of energy-hungry clients. Engineers at the University of Petrobras in Rio de Janeiro must master the secrets of pumping oil buried 7,000 meters beneath the Atlantic. Forget ivy-hung walkways and fratfests; think enterprise incubators, virtual oil rigs, and mobile classes for transport workers in railroad cars. The alma mater isn’t what it used to be....

http://education.newsweek.com/2010/09/13/across-the-globe-big-companies-start-own-colleges.html