1 - It's not about what the students themselves pay, it's about the cost. And I picked Stanford as sort of middle of the road cost-wise for private education. P

1 - It's not about what the students themselves pay, it's about the cost. And I picked Stanford as sort of middle of the road cost-wise for private education. Public schools are of course subsidized heavily by tax dollars, which reduces tuition but certainly not the actual cost of the education. As far as quality, Udacity instructors and courses are far, far above a typical community college. 2. I picked Udacity since their courses are custom developed for the platform. Coursera courses are often very similar to the courses the instructors developed at their "day job" univeristies, the Udacity courses aren't really. They're new beasts.