HBX Launches Agreement with Amherst

Harvard Business School will reserve a set number of spots for Amherst College students applying to its online Credential of Readiness Program, as well as provide more financial aid opportunities for those applicants, starting in June.

The agreement with Amherst, announced in a press release Monday, will be replicated with other universities across the country in coming weeks.

The Credential of Readiness Program, or CORe, is part of HBX, the Business School’s online education program, and offers coursework in fundamental business education, according to its website. The program lasts 11 weeks and tuition is $1,800.

According to HBX Faculty Chair Bharat N. Anand, the agreement is intended to extend need-based financial aid opportunities to Amherst students as “financial aid works differently for [students from] different institutions.”

Last year, the CORe program determined financial aid eligibility for Harvard College students by consulting the Harvard College Financial Aid Office, resulting in financial packages “proportional to what they received at the College,” according to Anand. Only 13 percent of non-Harvard students enrolled in CORe received any form of financial aid, he added.

“The arrangement we had with Harvard Financial Aid Office is now one we can have with Amherst,” said Anand. “Finances shouldn’t be a limit in the students that you can pick.”

The CORe program has offered four different cycles of programming, the first of which started during summer 2014. About 40 to 50 percent of students during the first cycle were international students and 40 percent were women. The most recent cycle, which started less than three weeks ago, has 900 students; in total, 1,800 students have gone through the program.

Anand said that statistics for the more recent cycles are unavailable because data collection procedures are still underway.

—Staff writer Ignacio Sabate can be reached at ignacio.sabate@thecrimson.com . Follow him on Twitter @TheIggySabate.