Tech is great about ignoring degrees and encouraging self taught people. Recruiters less so. And of course there are the edge cases with two nearly identical candidates with the one single difference... What % of actual degree value do standalone extension school classes from top universities have in terms of passing resume screen? Getting to that screen in the first place is part of that too For example: "CS ### - Stanford Center for Professional Development (SCPD)" gets X% of the benefits of "MS CS - Stanford University" Best educated guess based on your experience
I went to Stanford and when you take SCPD classes, you are actually taking regular classes with Stanford students, except remotely. That being said, I‘d rather direct my own learning than have to bear again all the superficial knowledge that got thrown at me in college. Resume fillers don’t matter past getting you the phone interview by the way.
This will differ from one case to another. Someone with CS bachelor’s from top school, when they add say, ML/AI extension certificate from MIT or Stanford will stand out better than someone with only a CS degree for ML/AI related jobs, and for someone with non-tech bachelor’s+cs certificate would not win over someone with CS bachelors degree for any SWE jobs