I'm a big proponent of MOOCs, having participated in a few, and currently taking the Udacity Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree (the others I took also revolv

I'm a big proponent of MOOCs, having participated in a few, and currently taking the Udacity Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree (the others I took also revolved around ML). That said, the thing that bugs me about them is how they may be perceived by a potential employer? Granted, anyone can put on their resume/cv that they went to school x/y/z and gained a BA or MA; most employers probably don't even look at it. But a few probably do investigate further; and there is always the chance that a new employer might look into your stated background and find that, "No, you didn't graduate from XYZ, and oh, btw, you're fired." Having that piece of documentation from an accredited school means something. Furthermore, if you have a certificate or something from another place that isn't recognized, it might be looked upon as a "diploma mill" certificate, not worth the paper it is printed on, so to speak. This is why I support companies like Udacity and Coursera, because they might lend an air of legitimacy to their certificates (much like the various Microsoft and Cisco certs), to help prove to potential employers that you are the "real deal". That's not to say that Course Buffet can't do the same (and honestly, there's a lot still needed to be done to communicate to employers that these MOOC offering do have merit) - but right now, outside of having an extensive project portfolio and some other measures of demonstrating to the employer, there isn't many ways to convey to them that "Yes, I have a level of knowledge equivalent to a BA in CompSci." Ultimately, as always and regardless of your degree (or not), it all comes down to how you sell yourself to the employer. Still - if it comes down to two people who have convinced the employer to consider them for hiring, it might just come down to who has the "actual" degree - the guy with a known institution on that piece of paper, or the guy with a random PDF certificate (or 20) from random online sites? This is an unfortunate bias in our educational and employment system, and it is going to be a difficult one for MOOCs to overcome - but I do hope it happens, because frankly, college education, despite its certain advantages, is very expensive (and some would say overpriced). Not to mention its structure and student-body makeup, being naturally skewed toward a younger student population, tends to turn away an older population who may want to seek a degree in their later years, but don't want to feel out of place. MOOCs can fill that role, but there are a lot of prejudices and assumptions that need to be overcome in the meantime to get employers to understand their value.