Coursera will charge a 15% fee to colleges and companies that use its online learning platform, starting in 2026. It’s a significant shift in universities’ relationship with third-party online program managers, or OPMs, following the scramble toward digital learning during the pandemic and the MOOC trend of the 2010s.
“[Coursera] is not as dependent on their university relationships and is instead relying on industry partners and internal content,” says Brady Colby, head of market research at Validated Insights, a higher education research firm.
The shift should alert higher education leaders that they could lose a share of the upskilling industry to other sectors, particularly in artificial intelligence, Colby adds.
What’s driving the shift from Coursera?
Colleges have grown increasingly weary of the tuition-sharing agreements that undergird many OPM partnerships. At the same time, more institutions are building in-house online programs.
These forces have left a lasting impact on the U.S. OPM market. New university partnerships with OPMs in the first half of this year are down 45% from last year, and total revenue in 2025 is about $3.5 billion, which is about 40.9% less than the $8 billion-plus projection made before COVID, according to the latest report from Validated Insights.
The decline in partnerships has pushed OPMs toward a fee-for-service model, which enables institutions to purchase targeted support services—such as in marketing or recruitment—instead of relying on full-scale content platforming.
“As institutions soured on OPMs writ large or became more confident in their ability to do things internally, OPMs have been forced to pivot and have become more differentiated and specialized in their offering,” Colby says.
In earnings calls to investors over the past year, Coursera has discussed creating more AI classes and downplayed the significance of university partnerships, according to a column written by Phil Hill, an edtech market analyst.
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The recently introduced 15% platform fee suggests that Coursera believes its brand and platform—bolstered by an array of in-house, industry and university content—now hold enough leverage to justify reducing partner payouts.
“Coursera might have spent months of analysis and thoughtful discussion internally, but many university partners are, how shall we say, quite upset,” wrote Hill.
Industry certificates: A threat to online higher ed programs?
While the fee applies to Coursera’s industry and higher education partners, colleges are likely to see the bigger impact to their revenue streams, Colby says.
Revenue that Google may lose from offering certificates on Coursera “is a tiny sliver of what they do, and it arguably isn’t as important to them compared to the other benefits they get.”
For example, learners who become familiar with Google technologies while earning a professional certificate may be more likely to gravitate toward future products from the company.
The workforce’s demand for millions of workers skilled in AI has brought higher education into direct competition with industry providers of flexible, online certificates and bootcamps, Colby says.
“There’s this growing understanding of the upskilling population that not only are industry offerings a viable option, but, in some cases, they’re the better option.”
