Georgia Tech’s Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMS CS) earned its highest endorsement to date as President Barack Obama cited the program as a nationwide model for controlling the rising costs of higher education.

****Watch the full speech here. President Obama mentions Georgia Tech at 32:24 mark****

The College of Computing, in collaboration with Udacity and AT&T, will offer the degree through the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) delivery format beginning in January 2014.

Obama opened a two-day presidential bus trip on Thursday in Buffalo, N.Y. in part to outline a new federal education plan focused on college affordability. As part of his plan, the president sought to tie federal aid directly to the costs of going to college as well as to student performance at the nation’s colleges and universities.

Georgia Tech was among a handful of institutes of higher learning mentioned in Obama’s speech.

Specifically, Obama cited Georgia Tech as “a national leader in computer science” and praised the institute for offering an online master's degree in computer science “at a fraction of the cost of a traditional class.” He stated further that the coursework promises to maintain Georgia Tech’s rigorous standards while “producing engineers who are just as good."

Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson said schools must provide more affordable educational opportunities for students through technology-assisted education. For Georgia Tech, its OMS CS also helps “address the nation’s growing shortage of qualified workers in STEM fields and provide promising career opportunities to thousands of students.
“As one of the leading technological universities in the U.S., Georgia Tech is committed to helping students maximize the value of their educational investment,” Peterson said. “To this end, we’re implementing measures to help improve college completion rates, control costs, continuously improve quality, and offer online education for lifelong learning.”