There’s going to be a new way for workers to advance their careers in California.

Lawmakers included $100 million in this year’s state budget to create an online community college that will offer certificate and credentialing programs. It will get another $20 million annually.

The plan was proposed by Governor Jerry Brown and backed by California Community Colleges Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley.

The mission is to retrain workers with skills needed in high-demand jobs. There are 2.5 million Californians between the ages of 25 and 34 who are in the workforce but never completed a college degree.

“We’re targeting what we call ‘stranded workers.’ They are in jobs that will eventually be eliminated because of automation and/or they have no real opportunity for economic mobility because all new jobs require some kind of post-secondary credential,” Oakley told CNN.

Roughly one-third of new jobs in the state are expected to require some career technical education that goes beyond high school but not as far as a four-year degree, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Related: A degree from this college all but guarantees you a job

The statewide online community college will be tailored to working adults and prepare workers for jobs in growing industries, like advanced manufacturing, healthcare, the service sector, in-home support services, and child development.

The programs are intended to be different than what’s already offered by the state’s community college system. They will usually be shorter than a two-year associate’s degree program. Some will take just three or four weeks, Oakley said.

But many faculty members oppose the creation of a new online school. They say the money would be better spent expanding existing online options.

“Rather than beginning a whole new college and wasting millions of dollars developing a new bureaucracy, the proposed allocation of $120 million would be much better spent expanding the existing community college Online Education Initiative,” a group of independent faculty unions wrote in a letter opposing the measure.

Related: Walmart wants to pay for its workers to go to college

Credentials in information technology support and medical coding will be the first offered at the new online school.

“We’re predicting 10,000 job openings in medical coding over the next four or five years. We will continue to offer it until we see that employer demand was waned,” Oakley said.

A credential in medical coding is not currently offered by California’s community college system, which is one of the biggest in the country and has 114 campuses.

The cost will be comparable to the $46 per credit charged by the traditional community colleges. But students may be charged on a per-module or subscription system, Oakley said.

The plan is to begin enrolling students in the new online college by the end of 2019.

The state budget was approved by lawmakers on Thursday. The governor has until June 30 to sign the legislation.

CNNMoney (New York) First published June 19, 2018: 11:37 AM ET

An investing earthquake is underway and it’s threatening to end traditional money management as we know it.

Investors are pouring their money into so-called passive index funds that blindly track market indexes using computers.

It’s a shift that is coming at the expense of funds that are run by mere mortals, aka invesment managers, who try to pick stocks that will outperform the market.

The trend is especially pronounced in the United States, where 28% of the industry’s $17 trillion in assets are currently invested in passive funds, up from just 13% in 2008, according to data from market research firm Morningstar.

American investors have plowed a total of $671 billion into passive funds since the start of 2015, while pulling $257 billion out of so-called active funds run by managers over the same period.

Prominent BlackRock (BLK) CEO Larry Fink predicted this week that regulatory changes in the industry will encourage even more money to flow into these funds.

“We are likely to see a historical shift on how assets are being managed,” he said. “[Investors] will use [passive funds] more and more at the center of their portfolios.”

BlackRock’s (BLK) popular iShares business, which offers investors passive exchange-traded funds (aka ETFs), saw $51 billion in net inflows over the past quarter while the firm’s active funds brought in less than one-tenth that amount.

While it’s tempting to invest with top investment managers who promise to outperform the market, research has shown that this strategy often results in smaller returns.

“Actively managed funds have generally underperformed their passive counterparts, especially over longer time horizons,” said Morningstar researchers in a recent paper.

The reason for the lackluster performance of active funds typically comes back to investment fees — which are much higher at active funds. (Computer algorithms don’t have kids to feed back at home!)

Related: How should I invest a $250,000 windfall?

But some market strategists warn that passive investing is becoming a crowded trade, with too many people hopping onto the bandwagon.

“Indexing and ETFs offer tremendous value as part of the market, but they should not become the market. If this is an investor’s singular approach to the markets, it represents a pursuit of mediocrity,” said Mike O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.

CNNMoney (London) First published October 20, 2016: 6:36 AM ET

Joining a growing number of luxury auto makers, Audi unveiled a new all-electric SUV. Called the E-Tron, the SUV will be available in Europe later this year and in the United States next spring.

Audi said it is taking refundable $1,000 deposits for the E-Tron starting now. Prices will start at about $75,000 or $86,700 for well-equipped “First Edition” models.

It’s the first of three new electric vehicles Audi will introduce over the next few years. The German luxury automaker, which is part of the Volkswagen Group (VLKPF), also announced it is partnering with Amazon to handle installation of home charging stations for E-Tron buyers.

The E-Tron was revealed at an event on the San Francisco waterfront. Hundreds of drones formed Audi’s four ring logo over a former Ford factory turned event space.

The SUV was unveiled here because the E-Tron was designed with the US market especially on mind, Audi executives said.

While it might not generate the excitement of a Tesla unveiling — that company received hundreds of thousands of dollars in deposits for its Model 3 within hours of that car’s debut — the E-Tron increases the competitive pressure.

The E-Tron follows Jaguar’s I-Pace electric SUV. Mercedes and BMW also recently unveiled electric SUVs that will go on sale within the next couple of years.

These offerings are all SUVs mostly because the market, in general, has shifted heavily in that direction.

“We wanted to be in the SUV space because we saw the growth and we wanted to be in the sweet spot of the market,” said Filip Brabec, Audi’s vice president for product development.

Car shoppers considering an electric car today are no longer interested in their vehicle looking radically different from anything else on the road, said Brabec.

The E-Tron looks, quite clearly, like an Audi SUV. It even has Audi’s famous trapezoidal grill, a key branding feature, despite not needing a radiator. The grill allows air to pass through under the battery to provide some additional cooling.

There are some unique attributes, though. The E-Tron stands a little wider than Audi’s other SUVs. Slats running across the rear bumper draw attention to the car’s lack of tailpipes, while there are lights in the front that are designed to look like the bars of a charge status indicator.

In Europe, the E-Tron won’t have traditional side mirrors. Instead, it will have a camera on each side where mirrors would ordinarily be. The views from those cameras will be displayed on screens inside the vehicle.

That system will not be available in the United States because safety regulations here don’t allow for it. Audi executives said they are working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to bring this feature to the American market.

With two electric motors, the all-wheel-drive SUV can accelerate from zero to 60 miles an hour in 5.5 seconds and it has a top speed of 124 miles an hour. It will be able to tow as much as 4,000 pounds. Audi has not yet announced what its driving range will be on a full charge.

When the E-Tron is cruising, rather than accelerating, it is driven mostly by the rear motor. Engineers put a heavy emphasis on recuperating as much energy as possible while driving. That’s generally done as a vehicle brakes or slows by allowing the wheels to push the electric motors, which then act as generators.

In the E-Tron, the driver will be able to select how aggressively the car uses this system, allowing for “one pedal” driving in which taking pressure off the accelerator pedal will slow the car to a full stop using only the motors.

As with other Audi vehicles, the driver will also be able to select different driving modes, from comfortable to sporty, that will alter suspension stiffness, steering responsiveness and how aggressively the SUV accelerates. The SUVs ground clearance is also adjustable by as much as three inches.

Buyers will be able to purchase a home charging system and have it installed by Amazon Home Services. The installation can be ordered online. Pricing will vary depending on each homeowner’s needs.

Audi plans to release two more electric vehicles in the next two years and a total of 12 by 2025.

CNNMoney (San Francisco) First published September 18, 2018: 12:08 AM ET