Udacity announces low-cost Master of Science in AI

Online education platform Udacity on Oct. 15 launched an accredited Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence program that the company estimates will cost students less than $5,000. The offering is one of a botload of AI education options these days: boot camps, certifications, and multi-year on-campus programs.

University pros and industry analysts shared with IT Brew some 2025 AI upskilling opportunities that stood out to them. For IT pros who want to quickly upskill in AI, these are some options.

AI jobs! Why should IT pros consider learning some nifty AI skills? Two words: job opportunities. A July 28 report from job-recruiting site Glassdoor found that AI jobs, despite constituting “a small portion of all job postings,” increased 53% YOY in 2025. Those jobs whose postings referred to “AI” offered base salaries of around $121,000, according to the study, “compared to $64k for all non-AI roles.”

AI candidates! IT pros should realize their peers are rapidly learning AI skills, potentially putting them in a better position for future opportunities. A study from learning company Pearson, released in April, found that the number of candidates planning to earn an AI certification increased from 17% in 2022 to 35% in 2024.

“Nano” tech. Udacity’s program requires students to complete seven “nanodegree” programs, including Agentic AI, Generative AI, Data Analyst, and AI Programming with Python. The program also calls for 750 additional hours of study in electives like AI for Healthcare and Self-Driving Car Engineer.

Degrees are awarded by higher-ed institution Woolf, which lets qualified organizations join as new member colleges and offer accredited degrees. While most of the learning is “self-paced,” according to Udacity’s VP of Consumer Jared Molton, and can be done on one’s own schedule, he said mentors are available to provide feedback in office hours and live sessions. Udacity estimates the program will take 2,250 study hours, or roughly 18 to 24 months, to complete.

On campus. A June 2025 study from National University found that “more than three-quarters of AI job openings give preference to candidates with a Master’s degree.”

TechGuide recently ranked Master of Science in AI programs, which listed Carnegie Mellon, Duke, and Northwestern in its top three spots. The average total tuition for those options, according to TechGuide, was $64,154.

Molton said his team discovered that 28% of Udacity’s graduates reported starting a new academic program after obtaining a nanodegree. “That was kind of an ‘a-ha’ moment for us. We were like, ‘Hey, we know our learners are doing this. How do we set them up even better for that opportunity?’”

Cert-ainly. Though businesses in 2024 appeared to prefer Master’s degrees, market-intelligence firm Gartner recently recommended that organizations prioritize candidates with certifications that close skills gaps in valuable, business-impacting areas like AI, cybersecurity, and cloud. “More employers are dropping degree requirements, recognizing that IT certifications provide a faster, more objective validation of workforce readiness, especially in critical areas like AI, cloud, and cybersecurity,” according to Gartner’s published guidance in August 2025.

Gartner highlighted these “prominent” certifications in its recent report:

• Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Graduate Certificate and the MIT Professional Education certificate in Machine Learning and AI.
• IBM Applied AI [Developer] Professional Certificate (Coursera) and AI Fundamentals Certification (DataCamp).
• The Microsoft-certified Azure AI Engineer Associate and Advanced Certifications from Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia, which Gartner’s recommendations said focus on “real-world integration of AI into cloud, data engineering, and edge computing environments.”
• The USAII’s Certified Artificial Intelligence Scientist and Artificial Intelligence Engineer Certification (ARTiBA).
• DeepLearning.AI’s Deep Learning Specialization (Coursera).

There are numerous education options for AI, but a clear standard for the emerging technology has not yet emerged.

“You don’t necessarily have to have a four-year degree to get an entry-level tech job,” Kirk Smallwood, VP of key accounts and industry engagement at CompTIA, told us in August.