Until recently, corporate involvement with higher education most often consisted of tuition assistance or tuition reimbursement programs. However, employers found that such programs did not always meet their specific training needs. Or, the employee could have obtained the training, or credit for the training, through some other, less expensive means. Today, companies are trying to hold down tuition assistance program costs in several ways. First, the corporate university education does not prepare the employee for the almost inevitable job or career changes that he or she will face, sometime in his or her life.
Corporate universities are helpful if the employee plans to stay in one industry.
But what we are seeing is a trend of the flexible worker. Another drawback, suggests Ivery, is the loss of educational variety. Employees no longer attend classes at different colleges or universities ad come back with fresh ideas that resonate with or run against the ideas of the other employees. But what you are doing is cookie-cutting employees out of the same mold. You lose diversity.