Intellectual Capital Partnership Program (ICAPP)

 

How ICAPP Advantage Works

ICAPP Advantage prepares people to be knowledge workers ( workers who generate value for others by creating, sharing or using ideas) in occupations that are in high demand and short supply in specific regional labor markets.  ICAPP Advantage is directly tied to specific job commitments by employers.

ICAPP was created to help employers succeed in Georgia.  ICAPP is company-focused, and is not intended to create new degree programs at institutions.

ICAPP Advantage can be used as an economic development incentive to encourage a company or other employer to either expand in or relocate to Georgia. 

ICAPP Advantage students earn credit hours that can count toward earning a degree.  Students may also earn career-related certificates with the academic credit earned.

ICAPP Advantage's direct economic benefit of a greater than 15:1 return on the State's investment through salary increases was documented in a 1998 study "Analysis of Georgia's Intellectual Capital Partnership Program" by the Economic Forecasting Center at Georgia State.

Requirements

A project must meet several requirements to be funded as an ICAPP Advantage project.

1. New jobs
   The employer must create at least 10 new knowledge jobs that are strategically important to Georgia.
2. Knowledge workers
   The project must prepare people to be employed as knowledge workers.  For the purposes of ICAPP Advantage, a knowledge worker is defined as a person who:
   -generates value for others by creating, sharing or using ideas.
   -completes a job using intellect and experience more than machinery and tools.
   -earns a minimum each year of the most recent Georgia per capita income.
3. High demand, low supply
   There must be a documented shortage of this type of worker throughout the industry in this regional labor market, not just for this individual company.
4. Partnership
   An employer and a USG college or university work together to design a program of study to prepare students for specific knowledge jobs at that company.  The company must commit to hire each ICAPP graduate in the job for which they were educated.  Students must make a C or better in each ICAPP course to graduate.
5. Accelerated education
   Instruction must be compressed into a substantially shorter time than usual.  ICAPP students must be full-time students.  Classes must be for academic credit.  (A limited number of non-credit courses that specifically apply to an employer's proprietary information may be part of the ICAPP Advantage program.)
6. No overlap with Georgia DTAE
   The USG institution must certify that the education needs being addressed by the application cannot be met by existing programs at Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education (DTAE) institutions in the service area.

Financial Information

A USG institution may apply for ICAPP Advantage funding to help pay for the costs of instruction, including faculty, equipment, and space.

An ICAPP student may apply for an ICAPP service cancelable loan to help pay for expenses (tuition, books and living expenses) while participating in the ICAPP program.  The loan amount depends on the salary that the employer commits to pay the ICAPP graduate, with a $7,500 loan available for positions paying less than $50,000 annually, and a $10,000 loan available for positions paying $50,000 or more each year.

Students will learn more about the ICAPP loans after acceptance into the program.

The Georgia Student Finance Authority administers this service cancelable loan.  The student signs a promissory note and is legally responsible to cancel the debt, either through repayment or approved employment.  At the end of each year that an ICAPP student works with the ICAPP company (or in the same field of work for another company in Georgia), $2,500 of the student's debt is canceled.

The HOPE scholarship or grant may pay for some of the student's expenses if the student meets HOPE's requirements.

The ICAPP Liaison Officer for the Medical College of Georgia is Dr. Roman M. Cibirka, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, (706) 721-3096.