Igor Tulchinsky, founder of WorldQuant LLC, an early player in quantitative investing, has established WorldQuant University, an online educational platform offering tuition-free master's degrees in financial engineering. The university aims to bridge the gap between talent and opportunity by providing advanced education in finance and technology. The program, which admits new students every seven weeks, expects to graduate its first students in February. With 14 courses taught by experts in various areas, the university is part of the digital marketplace and focuses on developing careers in data science, computer science, and finance management.

Sonam Srivastava, a quant analyst at HSBC Global Markets who lives in Bangalore, said she enrolled in WorldQuant in February 2016, drawn to courses that favor people who are active in the field of finance and can provide insight into achieving market-beating returns, known as alpha.

Here’s a gist:

• Igor Tulchinsky, founder of WorldQuant LLC, has created WorldQuant University, an online educational platform offering tuition-free master's degrees in financial engineering.

• The university aims to bridge the gap between talent and opportunity by providing advanced education in finance and technology.

• WorldQuant University operates online, eliminating the need for physical campuses and focusing on scalability and efficiency.

• The program has an admissions process with an essay, references, and credential verification.

• The university currently offers 14 courses taught by experts in areas such as Python programming and machine learning.

• Enrollment is growing at a rate of 25% per cohort, with 890 students from 75 countries currently enrolled.

• Students are admitted seven times a year, and the first graduates are expected in February.

• The university is designed to cater to the changing landscape of the financial sector, driven by technology and data.

• It aims to provide practical skills in areas like data analysis and financial engineering to support careers in finance and related fields.

• According to Tulchinsky, the growth of data, computer power, and knowledge creates a need for a different kind of education, and traditional degrees like MBAs may become less necessary in the future.

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