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-- The Wang Institute of Graduate Studies in Tyngsboro, Mass., opened in 1979 to offer the first full-time master of software engineering degree. Started by An Wang of Wang Laboratories, Inc., the hugely successful computer company in nearby Lowell, the institute aims to educate a new breed of executive scientist who can create models of order in the individualistic and chaotic computer-software field. Wang believes that its integrated regimen of planning, design and testing of new systems, guided by written instructions, can be an answer. Set up in a former Marist Brothers seminary, the institute is an independent nonprofit school. Only ten of its 50 master's candidates come from Wang Labs; the others come from the likes of AT&T, Digital Equipment and GTE. Says one student: "I'm finding just the right mix of technological and management courses."
-- The American Graduate School of International Management in Glendale, Ariz., is known worldwide for its preparation of global business managers, and about 25% of almost 1,000 full-time master's candidates are from foreign countries. The school provides instruction in eight tongues, among them Mandarin Chinese and English as a second language; the courses emphasize business terms used in macroeconomics and cross-cultural management. The school also tailors short programs for the special needs of multinational companies like Mitsubishi Electric, which recently sent nine managers and engineers for a 14-week program on English language and American management.
-- The DeVry Institutes, a Bell & Howell subsidiary, are at the trade-school end of the spectrum. A profit-making enterprise, DeVry sells "education for the real world." It is a tough-minded, no-frills outfit with about 30,000 students, enrolled in eleven institutes across the continent, studying for bachelor's, associate's and technician's diplomas in various electronics fields. The school operates twelve months a year in three shifts, morning, afternoon and night. Along with their technical courses, degree students must satisfy some requirements in psychology, English, history and literature. But DeVry makes no bones about the fact that it is preparing people for work, not contemplation. That is just fine with the students. "We know we'll get jobs," says Computer Student Pamela Ramey, 23. It also works out fine for DeVry. Profits for the first nine months of 1984: $7.1 million on revenues of $105.5 million.
-- The National Technological University is the newest and most exotic of the degree-granting corporate classrooms. Started five months ago in Fort Collins, Colo., N.T.U. organizes the videotaping of advanced engineering classes at 16 cooperating universities. The tapes are sent to business sites owned by seven sponsoring corporations. Working engineers "attend" the lectures on VCRs, and mail their course work to the school where the lecture originated. N.T.U. then assembles the credits toward a master's degree. This fall N.T.U. plans to start using satellite transmission. Teleconferencing may occasionally be added so that students can participate in classroom dialogue. So far 270 are enrolled all over the U.S. The goal is 5,000. If it all sounds like Brave New U., one N.T.U. official is confident that the satellite will be the key to expansion: "The universities are waiting to sign our dance card."