You are Marisol Prieto, Director of Executive Education at Beacon Business Institute. A wrong bet on the portfolio strips a year of tuition revenue and the dean's confidence.
Beacon's open-enrollment certificate programs once filled reliably, drawing mid-career professionals across finance, healthcare, and logistics. Over three years, open-enrollment seats have slid 28 percent as employers pull learning budgets in-house and rivals launch cheaper online micro-credentials. Meanwhile inbound requests for custom, cohort-based corporate programs have doubled, but each takes months to scope and build, ties up senior faculty, and carries thin margins until a client renews. The unit must self-fund; the provost expects it to net a surplus that cross-subsidizes the school.