In partnership with the Australian Financial Review
Southern Cross University
Offers a flexible, future-focused pathway for professionals to elevate their strategic thinking and leadership skills without pausing their careers.
SCU's Graduate Certificate in Business is a 100% online program that teaches students how to apply key principles in economics, communication, accounting and business management to business.
This program can help build your practical skills, hone your research and evaluation abilities and grow your confidence. If you find you love it, everything you study can be credited towards a Southern Cross University Online Graduate Diploma in Business or a Master of Business Administration (MBA).
Students must complete the following four core units.
To qualify for the Graduate Certificate in Business, you need:
No Bachelor's degree? You could be eligible for entry into the course through your relevant work experience.
Contact the university or visit their website for more information.
SCU recognises and rewards credit for past education, qualifications and work experience through a process called advanced standing. If you're eligible for advanced standing, this can impact the number of units you need to study, reducing the time and cost of your overall degree. Contact the university for more details.
Learning outcomes
Career outcomes
SCU's business students work across corporate, government and not-for-profit organisations in industries such as healthcare, education, financial services, industrial products and services, mining and more. Below is a snapshot of some of these jobs.
Fee per unit in 2026: $3,125 (domestic full-fee paying place)
Total course fee in 2026: $12,500 (domestic full-fee paying place)
The number of units you must complete to graduate depends on the course and if you receive advanced standing. This, in turn, will effect how much your Southern Cross University Online course fees will cost you.
Student fees may vary in accordance with:
You may also need to pay the student services and amenities fee.
Student fees shown are subject to change. Contact the university directly to confirm.
FEE-HELP loans are available to assist eligible full-fee paying domestic students with the cost of a university course.
Dr Sharen Nisbet is a teaching scholar with expertise in educational design and employability. She teaches units in human resource management, organisational behaviour, and change management across a range of programs, including the Master of Business Administration (Online).
Her dedication to community engagement and innovative teaching methods ensures that her students receive a comprehensive and practical education, preparing them for successful careers in business.
I highly recommend this course. It has been a wonderful experience, tough at times, but I'm better for it. The flexibility of the learning is perfect for busy executives and it's very current so everything applies to your real-world experiences.
An MBA is just a good, general piece of education that helps you understand more broadly how a company functions and gives me some knowledge that is really important for where my career is at the moment.
For me, this was the next natural progression in my career as a leader in Health and Technology. The fact that my work and home life are time-poor, like many of us, led me down the path of online study, where I could set my own pace for each module of the course. Online study also meant that I didn't have the distraction of having to travel to campus or sit in lectures.
