Utah offers school for software professionals

Nadine Whitfield was an electronics technician for the U.S. Postal Service making $51,000 a year when she quit her job in Oakland, Calif., to enroll at a new for-profit Utah school that aims to churn out legions of software developers.

By PAUL FOY
AP business writer

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/07/25/news/business/a42b59b82bb2247f87256edc001befa6.txt

Thanks to Headwaters News http://www.headwatersnews.org/ for passing this along- Russ)

"I wanted more earnings capacity," said Whitfield, who hopes to double her postal salary after 10 years.

Northface University says it can produce more useful job hires than Ivy League schools in barely half the time.

The comparison isn’t welcomed, but Northface, where tuition runs $60,000 for an intensive 28-month computer-science degree, has the backing of IBM, Microsoft and other technology companies looking to donate software, development tools and training regimens for the curriculum.

The school’s prime sponsor is IBM Corp., which last week announced an initiative to get more involved in college instruction by offering free software and discounted hardware. It is trying to counter Microsoft Corp.’s dominance in the market and on campus, where most computers operate on Windows. IBM wants its pick of more grads versed in IBM-written applications for Linux and other open-source systems.

"I’m jazzed about the Northface program," IBM research fellow Grady Booch said. "Northface is producing a far better match for the skill sets that IBM needs."

IBM is opening an academic front at Northface, where students tote powerful wireless Thinkpads loaded with IBM programs, including WebSphere Internet software.

Yet Northface has found no lack of industry partners, promising a supply of ready-to-work software designers in return who don’t cost as much to train. It opened doors in January, moving recently to a gleaming new Jordan River office park that promises to be Utah’s largest. Since January it has enrolled 130 students, with 90 more on the way next quarter, in October. The business plan calls for churning out 1,200 graduates a year by 2007.

The school, run by a pair of former capital venture executives and a technology chief, say students can get a degree as good as at any elite school in barely two years instead of four, more practical experience and sterling job prospects.

"Our mission is developing the most sought-after developers in the world," said Northface University chairman and chief executive H. Scott McKinley, a former managing Asia director for Chase Capital Partners. "Our grads will be effective on day one in their jobs."

Those lofty ambitions have some top-brow schools frowning. "I don’t want to rain on their parade," said Eric Grimson, an administrator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s engineering and computer science department, but he’s unimpressed.

"It sounds like an institution that has identified a need, but will come out with programmers instead of people really trained to think critically," he said.

Northface is accredited by an organization that mostly certifies trade schools, which made its students eligible for federal loans. McKinley rejects all comparisons to trade schools, saying he has plans to offer a master’s in business administration with a technology bent.

On the Net:

Northface University: http://www.northface.edu