Maybe AI won’t steal all our jobs after all.

Thanks to a new partnership between Google and the University System of Maryland, students at all 12 public schools in the system and two of its regional centers will be able to enroll in free training for “high-demand fields,” including cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI), with the opportunity to earn an accredited certificate.

Google’s program is designed to help fill the 1.6 million entry-level jobs open in the U.S. in digital marketing, information technology, product design and related fields. And according to company officials, it didn’t cost the Maryland university system — one of a few university systems across the country Google has partnered with — a dime.

Employers like Google are “increasingly looking for people with AI skills, and students are looking for training,” said Rob Magliaro, head of education and workforce at Grow with Google, the search engine’s job-skills program. “That’s why this partnership makes so much sense.”

Each Maryland campus will decide how they offer the training by this fall, whether as a separate training class or integrated within certain academic courses. The online University of Maryland Global Campus has already partnered with Google individually and offers course credit for certificate training.

Google Career Certificates typically cost $49 per month and take three to six months to complete. They’re just one example of online certificates that have become a popular alternative for students, particularly at the undergraduate level.

“We’re moving into a time period where higher education and career-oriented education is changing,” said Jonathan Adams, an adjunct lecturer of data analytics at the University of Maryland, College Park. “You can make a good living without going to college and instead getting a whole stack of these certificates.”

He still advises students to stay in school, though, and supplement their education with this kind of certificate training.

“[For you] to get a job, someone’s going to ask if you know how to use Microsoft, Adobe, Google,” he said. There’s more to it than that, though: “To be good at the job, you have to be a critical thinker.”

He added that “if you’re on the IT track as an undergrad, you should do as many of these certificates as possible. It’s adding value and adding reality to some of these classroom discussions.”

Anupam Joshi, incoming vice provost and chief AI officer at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, said two types of students will benefit from the program: those who are studying in associated fields and want to build their credentials; and others studying completely different subjects who want to create new skill sets.

“If you’re a history major and you want to learn a little bit about how to use AI in history … that’s the kind of help it will provide,” he said.

Will students use the program? That remains to be seen.

“Given what’s happening in the world and the economy, I think any additional advantage we can provide, students will leverage,” Joshi said.