The author has a surprisingly naive vision of education, in spite of being a hiring manager. I've recently finished a well-known online course, with almost max

The author has a surprisingly naive vision of education, in spite of being a hiring manager. I've recently finished a well-known online course, with almost maximum grade, and even if the quality of the course is good, there is definitely no comparison with a real-world college course. Due to the nature of online courses, grades are automated, and definitely don't match the dynamics of a real-world course (eg. better solutions = better grades). It's also practically impossible not to pass. Cheating is also a factor. I joined purely for learning, but I don't doubt that there is plenty of people taking shortcuts. I've witnessed somebody blatantly cheating exams without even recognizing it was cheating, and against the honor code. Maybe, in a future where people must take the exams in qualified centers, with the papers/projects reviewed by professors, the points above would change - but the price would necessarily rise considerably. Other aspects: as somebody wrote, top universitory teacher doesn't imply best teacher; forums are polluted with garbage/trivial questions due to mass (free) enrollment, causing valid questions to drown in the noise; face time, community, college life, structure are all one big package, which I think it's fundamental for the average young adult. Finally, I'm very skeptical about the impressiveness of the DIY degree. I have the suspicion that only a few "learning freaks" (I don't mean it in a derogative way) would end up taking it - motivated people who decided not to take a degree [in their past], within constraints of limited time, would likely choose different, but still valid, learning routes. All in all, I'm actually a big fan of MOOCs (loved the course I took), but they shouldn't be compared to traditional education.