Stanford is just trying to cash in on people by having their cake and eating it too.
They want to charge 20k, but not let anyone have a chance of further advancing to complete a real degree, no matter how excellent their performance in this program.
The reason they do this is solely to protect their brand and exclusivity. They already offer online degrees but the acceptance rate is just as limited as the on campus program.
Yes the learning is important, but so is the credential and a certificate doesn't even come close to a degree in the job market.
Stanford should pick one:
1) Charge Stanford prices, scale up online, and let any student who can do the work pay tuition and earn a degree.
2) Charge lower prices for certificates and continue to artificially ration real degrees.
I did this program. I can say it was literally a waste of money. I planned on joining a member company (so I could complete the degree remotely) at some point but meh none were interesting enough to join. You can get all the value in this program for free by reading a couple textbooks.
You get to take the actual classes but you don't get real credit for them. Recruiters, hiring managers don't care because it's not a real degree and they have no knowledge of the program. If you just want the knowledge you can basically get it for free from youtube or buy the textbooks. The ML/AI lectures there were often better than the ones from Stanford. You also don't have real student privileges. Some of the professors request that you do not attempt to show up for lecture or office hours because you aren't a real student. They just want you to watch the videos online.
And so on. It was overall a pretty negative experience for me. I can't recommend it.
"a certificate doesn't even come close to a degree in the job market"
So? Do they say that it does? I'm already a software engineer and can tell you that having an AI certificate from an accredited University is a great stepping stone to transitioning into this line of work even if it does not make me an expert.
I believe it helped you. I also believe if given a chance to try you may have been able to earn a full masters from Stanford and been helped even more. Not everyone has the time/money/desire, but many people now are artificially limited in the name of preserving brand equity and profit.
For me it's valuable the way they've constructed it. I like the idea that I can take some night classes in addition to my full time job, and just focus on one specific area.
Okay, graduate degrees fulfill that purpose too, but with life events now and over the horizon, I just don't have the bandwidth to commit to getting my Masters or a Ph.D. right now.
They're betting that a certificate with "stanford" on it is better than a certificate with "udacity" or "coursera", or "I read a bunch of web pages and books", "heres my kaggle ranking" or "look at this stuff I did on github and corresponding blog posts". [naturally people breaking into the field need not pick just one].
Depending on hiring filters, that might be true. If an application ever gets to an engineer though I'd bet on the last one or two winning.
I think a sensible organisation should skip the usual hiring filters in new fields, because [edit](my experience is in security) you can scoop up really good people who happen to have "unconventional" backgrounds if you have competent people evaluating them.
Regular HR people tend to do a really bad job with career switchers and the self taught since they mostly work off "signalling value". But in newer or very fast moving fields, the oddballs can be majority of decent applicants.
My limited experience is that very technical positions are not actually overwhelmed with applicants, and that it's not hard to evaluate if people have the right stuff because in these areas it's not difficult to devise quite objective challenges without resorting to shibboleths (guess what the interviewer is thinking or, do you come from the same technical culture as me).
Arguably ML positions should be the easiest to algorithmically hire for (at least for industry, not hard core research). Just put an automated judge with a fairly low bar on a business relevant objective function between your careers and your "submit job application" page :p
Personally I find this a little bit funny, because ML driven competence evaluation in "hard" (reasonably concrete objectives) fields should eventually render credentialism and signalling obsolete. But here we are, the $20k "certificate".
All these things said, a structured course of study is super useful for the undisciplined (certainly including me) and dropping "new car money" on something has a way of focusing the mind :)
I think a sensible organisation should skip the usual hiring filters in new fields, because much like security you can scoop up really good people who happen to have "unconventional" backgrounds if you have competent people evaluating them.
Sometimes it's quite sensible to travel in the opposite direction to everybody else.
I can't see any reason to believe this is true. It's not stated or even alluded to in their literature or admissions criteria.
Moreover even if it increases your chances a bit, it's a massive investment with no guarantee. Why not simply let the students who demonstrate excellence in earning the certificate a chance to spend another 50k for a degree?
The reason is to maintain artificial scarcity. Stanford has done a lot of great things and all the grads I've worked with have been top notch. However in some ways, Stanford is to education as De Beers is to diamonds.
They want to charge 20k, but not let anyone have a chance of further advancing to complete a real degree, no matter how excellent their performance in this program.
The reason they do this is solely to protect their brand and exclusivity. They already offer online degrees but the acceptance rate is just as limited as the on campus program.
Yes the learning is important, but so is the credential and a certificate doesn't even come close to a degree in the job market.
Stanford should pick one:
1) Charge Stanford prices, scale up online, and let any student who can do the work pay tuition and earn a degree.
2) Charge lower prices for certificates and continue to artificially ration real degrees.