Udacity is launching a free scholarship program under which it will offer 100,000 free skill-based learning courses to American workers. The program is a part of the Pledge to America’s Workers initiative launched by President Donald Trump’s government.
In a blog post, Udacity announced that it will give away free training classes for technology-based courses to 20,000 applicants annually from 2020 through 2024. The courses will strengthen the skills of workers seeking jobs in fields like information analytics, front-end web development and mobile app development.
Udacity has not announced any criteria for the applicants but said that the program is meant for low-income workers who want to boost their career in programming.
Gabe Dalporto, the newly appointed chief executive of Udacity, said these courses will help individuals in landing high-paying jobs by providing them an opportunity to learn in-demand expertise.
The program will be rolled out in two phases:
Phase 1 would involve scholarships for Udacity’s challenge courses in the field of tech and analytics. Candidates will be required to dedicate a few hours per week for 2-3 months to pursue courses. Scholarship recipients will also be job-relevant skills in their chosen fields.
The second phase of the program would include providing a Nanodegree scholarship to the top 10,000 students from the first phase. An Udacity Nanodgree usually costs $399 per month and the course period is five months.
The entire initiative will cost tens of millions of Dollars to Udacity.
Online applications for the Udemy’s Pledge to America’s Workers initiative will open in early 2020. You can pre-register by clicking on this link to know when applications open.
