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MOOC's promise is not about disrupting the privileged collegiate experience for the few entitled attendees. MOOC's promise is for the rest of the world. "And n

MOOC's promise is not about disrupting the privileged collegiate experience for the few entitled attendees. MOOC's promise is for the rest of the world. "And none of this is to suggest that institutions with very high prices ... aren't going to collapse. THEY WILL. And there may well be more people who get smart <who> go to a lower priced school rather than to the unaffordable "best" school they get into." (Emphasis mine & I removed the aid discount, since that's all that it really is - a discount.) Notice that "best" is not really the "best" it's only conditionally the "best". And when this is applied world wide, MOOCs will transform education, and vast numbers of educational institutions will pivot towards research, private industry partnerships or disappear altogether. In the end I believe that with MOOCs the world will be smarter, and the elite institutions more exclusive and elite. They will return to being class dating organizations that they once were before the idea of them being meritocratic academic institutions overtook them. Harvard, Stanford will survive. MIT, CalTech will excel. Cornell, Brown, UPenn, Yale, Princeton, the UCs, etc will struggle. None of them will be able to support their capital loads when the educational opportunities are presented significantly cheaper elsewhere. Add to that the fact that the Student Loan bubble will have burst, and student credit will be severely curtailed, and we see a significantly changed educational future. Kodak indeed.

Pacabel 12y ago
It's a shame to see that your comment got voted down. That said, it is a good example of why the "downvote if you disagree" policy that has been encouraged here is a rather idiotic idea. Your comment is clearly not commercial spam or anything of that nature. And it does present an argument, with justification for why it may hold true. It might "offend" thin-skinned people associated with some of the well-established academic institutions you'd listed. That's not a problem with the comment, however, but rather with the people who can't stand to read an argument that they may disagree with badly enough to want to censor. I don't know if I agree or disagree with what you said, but I do know that it wasn't a waste of my time to read it, and it did get me thinking somewhat. The most bothersome part was dealing with the unnecessarily gray text.
- ChuckFrank 12y ago
  Pacabel thank you for your note. My comment was meant in all seriousness. With so many institutions depending heavily on their students financing by student loans, I was making a call on which institutions I thought would survive and why and which institutions would likely fail. So why the downvote? And why not add something substantial to the conversation.

Pacabel 12y ago

It's a shame to see that your comment got voted down. That said, it is a good example of why the "downvote if you disagree" policy that has been encouraged here is a rather idiotic idea. Your comment is clearly not commercial spam or anything of that nature. And it does present an argument, with justification for why it may hold true. It might "offend" thin-skinned people associated with some of the well-established academic institutions you'd listed. That's not a problem with the comment, however, but rather with the people who can't stand to read an argument that they may disagree with badly enough to want to censor. I don't know if I agree or disagree with what you said, but I do know that it wasn't a waste of my time to read it, and it did get me thinking somewhat. The most bothersome part was dealing with the unnecessarily gray text.

ChuckFrank 12y ago
Pacabel thank you for your note. My comment was meant in all seriousness. With so many institutions depending heavily on their students financing by student loans, I was making a call on which institutions I thought would survive and why and which institutions would likely fail. So why the downvote? And why not add something substantial to the conversation.