New APC Classes at NYU Stern and Other MBA News Snippets

NYU Stern is offering working professionals the chance to refresh their business knowledge or gain quick insight into a specific area through its new non-degree Advanced Professional Certificate (APC) programs.

The programs will entail enrollees taking classes alongside Stern’s MBA students. To enroll, candidates must have at least two years’ professional experience and submit a GMAT or GRE score, or have previously completed an MBA. Three tracks will be available initially: finance, marketing and general business, with students allowed two years to complete them on a part-time basis.

“We believe our new offerings will appeal to many different types of working professionals,” commented Isser Gallogly, assistant dean of MBA admissions at the school (read our Q&A with Gallogly on the subject of MBA admissions here), in a press release. “For example, the finance track could quickly empower people who didn’t major in finance in college, but who now work in the industry, with a broader perspective that helps them excel in their function. Liberal arts majors can combine the fundamentals of marketing with the latest thinking in analytics and digital through the marketing track. Entrepreneurs without a business degree can customize the handful of business courses they want to take in the general business track. Others with an MBA may want to delve into a new area of interest.”

The newly opened Centre for Alternative Finance at Cambridge Judge Business School has published a study of alternative finance across Europe in collaboration with EY (read our Q&A with Kristina Liphardt, EY’s Americas campus recruiting leader for MBA recruiting here). The European Alternative Financing Benchmarking Report looks at funding channels such as crowdfunding and peer-to-peer business lending, covering a total of 255 leading platforms over Europe – an estimated 85-90% of Europe’s online alternative financing market.

Overall, the report finds that online alternative finance activity grew from €1.21 billion in 2013 to €2.96 billion in 2014 (US$1.37 billion to US$3.35 billion). It is on track, the report states, to grow beyond €7 billion (US$7.92 billion), and is becoming markedly less ‘alternative’, with institutional investors beginning to come into the picture. The estimated number of startups being funded through these channels has been growing at an estimated average of 133% over the past three years, rising to about 5,801 in 2014.