Blue Cross introduced Blue University in September 2001 to give employees the opportunity to complete or continue their educations and take advantage of career development opportunities on company premises.

Program breadth: Blue University offers noncredit training courses that provide job-specific skills, as well as for-credit courses, on the Blue Cross campus. It also offers development programs such as mentoring, tuition reimbursements for online degree programs and coursework on local university campuses.

Degrees offered on site: Associate of arts, bachelor of science, master of business administration, master of health administration, dual MBA/MHA, master of public health and master of project management.

Enrollment: About 174 students are attending credit courses on Blue Cross' campuses in Durham and Winston-Salem.

Partner universities: In the Triangle, Durham Technical Community College provides on-site associate degree courses, Mount Olive College provides bachelor's degrees, and Pfeiffer University provides MBAs. Students can also receive an online master's degree in health administration or public health through UNC-Chapel Hill or an online master's of project management through Western Carolina University.

Perks: In addition to tuition and book reimbursements, students receive paid sabbaticals after graduation. Graduates receive two days for an associate degree, one week for a bachelor's and two weeks for a graduate degree.

Requirements: To get tuition reimbursement, students must maintain a "C" average in undergraduate courses and a "B" average in graduate classes -- the same as the institutions' requirements for continued enrollment.

Cohorts: Blue University takes the "cohort" approach for its on-site degree programs, keeping each group of students together from their first course through graduation. The program also allows flexibility so that students who need to take a break can join a different cohort or catch up on courses at the universities' local campuses.

Courses: This semester, associate degree students are taking elementary Spanish and a humanities course on technology and society. Bachelor's degree students are studying statistics. Master's degree students, depending on their program, are taking courses including health care economics, project plan development, HR management for health and special topics in health care disparities.