I think you're arguing that a free online course will never be able to match the quality of a traditional paid in-person college course. If so, I think there's

I think you're arguing that a free online course will never be able to match the quality of a traditional paid in-person college course. If so, I think there's more to consider. Coursera's courses have been very high quality, and your work is graded. Those courses only have to be recorded once to be enjoyed by an unlimited number of people. You don't get those economies of scale with traditional education--of course you don't get nearly as much access to the instructor either. I think that's generally a trade off worth making. But even more, quality will always be all over the place in either case. One (or a bunch) of crappy classes doesn't mean that all classes suck--online or off. So I don't know that it's valid to even include quality level in the discussion. I will say, however, that a high quality online class has the opportunity to reach more people than a high quality in-person class--I consider that a big win. Then there's the issue of self teaching. I'm largely self taught and I've always preferred it that way. Give me something to do and I'll figure out how to do it. That might mean reading a book, asking someone for help, or taking a class. By far, the fastest way for me to learn something is either with a book or a good online class and putting it into practice quickly. Traditional education has been-by far-the slowest way for me to get good at something. It sounds like you prefer in class learning, which is fine, but there's absolutely good content out there (and more being made) and I think it's a net win in general over the traditional university model, particularly for someone like me that prefers to learn on my own.