UT launched the Extended Campus website March 8, consolidating all available continuing education programs from various colleges to help students easily access information about all programs. 

UT’s Extended Campus program offers short courses, certificate programs and degree programs to people who want to develop skills in a certain area. Currently, the continuing education program consists of the Extended Campus and six different program types, including certification programs for those in law or medical fields, according to the website. 

“A lot of the people that we serve in these programs tend to be early and mid-career professionals,” said Art Markman, vice provost for continuing and professional education and new education ventures. “Maybe you’ve been out of school for five or six years, and now you realize that there are some new skills that you need to pick up.”

The University is planning to increase enrollment of students in continuing education from 75,000 to 115,000 within the next five years in order to accommodate Austin’s growing population, Markman said.

“You no longer enter a career and have the same job for 40 years and have your retirement job at the end of those decades,” said Erin Harris, director of course programming for extended education ventures. “People are going to need to constantly reskill and upskill and go back and get training every few years throughout their career, and so it’s no longer thinking about college in terms of a four-year experience.”

Vera Hinojosa, chief of staff to the CEO of Indeed, said she participated in Extended Campus by getting her graduate degree in human dimensions of organizations and receiving various certification programs to leverage herself to a higher position. 

“I was promoted (to senior director) during the time that I was getting the degree because I got to use it immediately,” Hinojosa said. “After it was over, I was promoted to vice president.”

Hinojosa said that she often recommends taking up some form of continuing education to colleagues who are feeling uncertain in their careers.

“One of the things that folks often lack is confidence in their abilities and their skill set, and that’s an actually easy thing to fix,” Hinojosa said. “And often, that ends up looking like looking for some sort of continuing education that fills in a gap that they’re feeling vulnerable about.”

Along with those coming from the traditional workforce, UT’s Extended Campus plans to target both active military personnel and veterans, Markman said. The University hopes to make extended campus the number one provider of education for veterans in Texas, he said.

“You don’t just come here for an undergraduate education and then come back for football games,” Markman said. “We want people to come here and then to keep coming here.”