Learning for a Lifetime

As we look back on the last fiscal year, we have accomplishments to share and lofty new goals to strive for as we move into 2019.

Since first offering distance learning programs in 1977, Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE) has grown to delivering professional development programs to almost 26,000 learners worldwide as well as online degree programs to more than 10,000 graduate and undergraduate students in the 2018 fiscal year. Total enrollment of more than 36,000 has increased by 10 percent in the last two years. In addition, Georgia Tech’s massive open online courses or MOOCs, produced by GTPE, have had more than 3.6 million registrations to date. GTPE has also served more than 2,600 companies with public and sponsored professional development programs during this fiscal year.

It's no surprise that GTPE’s primary target audience, working professionals and other adult learners, forms an increasingly important part of the learner population at Georgia Tech. The Institute’s new 20-year academic roadmap shared by the Commission on Creating the Next in Education (CNE) in the report, Deliberate Innovation, Lifetime Education, pointed to the fundamental shift for Georgia Tech as we commit to broadening our focus from educating traditional college students aged 18 to 24, until they graduate, to serving learners of all ages throughout their lives. Lifetime learners will become a rapidly growing component of Georgia Tech’s student population, and the university of the future will offer pathways, credentials, and learning experiences to build careers and enhance the lives of people long after they get their undergraduate degrees.

Having offered professional education for 100 years and learning at a distance for more than 40 years, GTPE has a long history of success with this community of learners. We look forward to building on it and innovating as we support them at all stages of their career and life journeys.   

The GTPE 2018 Impact Report, our first digital version, highlights some of our achievements this year related to our programs and their delivery, our work to support state and community goals, our initiatives in advancing lifetime education, and our people who make it all happen at GTPE.

We’re excited about the future and our role in navigating the changes in higher education to open new doors for lifetime learners.

Nelson C. Baker, Ph.D.
Dean, Professional Education
Georgia Institute of Technology
dean@pe.gatech.edu