@merc81 - Yes, is it true of Harvard, and to pretty much any school that strictly follows the traditional Liberal Arts Doctrine.
In fact, the Harvard cohort would be the first to say that a traditional undergraduate Liberal Arts Degree is not intended to teach “job skills”; it is intended to teach “critical thinking” skills.
Adherence to this doctrine lies at the heart of the current philosophical debate over the efficacy of teaching “job skills” at the undergraduate level.
Harvard’s program, which is an on-line variant of a concept that I believe Dartmouth pioneered, is designed to provide enough practical skills to land a first job. These programs are expensive (hence the need for financial aid) but they can have good ROI for some humanities, social science and arts majors. The case tends to be less compelling for Econ and other quantitative majors which should have less trouble landing their initial job.
I like these programs, because I think they are a good complement to some undergrad Liberal Arts degrees. Note that anyone can apply. The announced partnerships are a marketing vehicle designed to increase awareness in target markets. There appears to be some financial aid benefit as well. I am sure this program is very profitable for Harvard, (because it is on-line), so it is not surprising that they are expanding it. Note that Harvard has also partnered with Yale to provide it’s Introductory Computer Science class on-line.