Over the weekend, I explored the first course in Coursera’s “IBM Product Manager Professional Certificate.” Professional Certificates are Coursera’s flagship credential. Only large companies, not universities, can offer them, and Coursera highlights them on its homepage and throughout its platform.
So I had some expectations from this course. Not too many, some.
I was surprised and disappointed on two fronts:
- The course appears to be white-labeled
- Most videos seem AI-generated: generic slides with monotonous, robotic voiceovers
White-labeling of Course Content
The course features the IBM brand, but it’s actually created by SkillUp EdTech, which also offers independent courses under its own brand.
After digging around in Class Central’s catalog, I discovered that SkillUp EdTech offers courses on both edX and Coursera. Both offer a Project Management Professional Certificate from IBM, and both list SkillUp EdTech as a co-creator. I compared the first course of the program on both platforms and found that the video content was identical.
Another thing I noticed was that on Coursera, SkillUp’s Introduction to Scrum Master Profession is repackaged in multiple ways: either as part of IBM-branded certificates or as ordinary Coursera Specializations only bearing the SkillUp name.
What Are You Actually Paying For?
Coursera’s success formula appears to involve three key elements: brand, topic, and credential.
The ‘brand’ often refers to big tech or other well-known companies, while the ‘credential’ is typically a Professional Certificate. The ‘topic’ represents ‘in-demand skills,’ or at least ones Coursera identifies as such.
This practice raises significant questions about content authenticity and the true value of corporate credentials. When you enroll in an “IBM Professional Certificate,” what exactly are you buying?
- IBM’s expertise and knowledge?
- Content created by IBM professionals?
- The brand name on your LinkedIn profile?
- A quality learning experience?
Learners perceive that credentials have the most value, and they pay for them. So, Coursera and other similar platforms are incentivized to create more credentials instead of focusing on the learning experience. The interchangeability of content across different platforms supports this conclusion.
If an “IBM certificate” doesn’t actually include IBM-created educational content, what does it represent? If learners discover this practice, the perceived value of these credentials might collapse.
This practice of white labeling is not new.
Famously, 2U acquired Trilogy Education, a company that operated bootcamps under university brands, for $750 million in 2019. These bootcamps featured the universities’ branding, often leaving students unaware of Trilogy’s role. However, late last year, 2U exited the bootcamp business altogether.
In 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that top universities were outsourcing their online degrees and courses to education companies like 2U for greater revenues, letting these firms run courses under the university’s brand, often without students’ knowledge.
The Economics of Professional Certificates
As someone who’s analyzed Coursera’s business model since its founding, I’ve watched its revenue strategy evolve dramatically.
According to SEC filings, approximately 28% of Coursera’s 2024 revenue came from just five content partners. My analysis suggests Google alone generates around $100 million annually through professional certificates on Coursera.
Being a publicly traded company means Coursera faces relentless pressure to deliver quarterly growth. In Q1 2024, its earnings announcement triggered a 15% stock drop to an all-time low, followed by leadership restructuring. This also led its long-term CEO to “retire” early this year.
In 2024, Coursera’s spending on proprietary content production was $17.3 million, up significantly from $5.3 million the previous year. Proprietary content allows for catalog exclusivity and offers better margins for the company.
My guess is that none of this investment is going to universities and is instead going toward Professional Certificates. I counted at least 18 IBM Professional Certificates on Coursera created by SkillUp EdTech, and just three on edX. So perhaps the remaining 15 are Coursera exclusives?
Quantity over Quality
Industry credentials are a solution for rapid growth, but creating authentic, high-quality educational experiences is expensive and time-consuming.
White-labeling, when combined with GenAI, can dramatically reduce the time to produce content. This allows Coursera and IBM to scale content production by outsourcing to specialized firms that churn courses more quickly and at a low cost.
During my course exploration, I found that the videos had generic PowerPoint presentations and obvious artificial voiceovers. There were occasional interviews with IBM product managers, but they were the only human and authentic element to the course.
As founder of Class Central, I’ve taken dozens of online courses since 2011. The best ones feature authentic experts sharing real-world experiences and insights you can’t find in textbooks.
Mountains 101 is a stellar example. It covers mountain geology, ecology, and culture with spectacular images, and has an interactive exploration tool to locate mountains around the world. The highlight is the instructors—mountaineers, researchers, ecologists, and conservationists—whose enthusiasm passes right through the screen. An unforgettable moment was when Zac, one of the instructors, shared memories of his climate change expedition to Canada’s highest mountain in our study group.
This white-labeled, subpar content offered none of that richness. The initial promise of MOOCs was democratizing access to genuine university-level education. The risk now is that we’re democratizing access to credentials while diluting the educational substance behind them.
The next time you see a professional certificate from a prestigious company on Coursera or similar platforms, I encourage you to look beyond the brand—check who created the content, watch sample videos critically, and ask whether you’re getting authentic expertise or just a credential with a famous logo.
Because in the end, the question remains: whose credential is it really?
The post White-Labeling in Online Education: Whose Credential Is It Anyway? appeared first on The Report by Class Central.
