I like what udacity is doing overall but I think they've failed to really comprehend the nature of the education industry in the United States. Overall, the biggest problems are simply perceptions by employers in terms of what is considered a quality education. First, employers don't view self-studied or online education to be good. Second problem is employers overwhelmingly gravitate towards traditional degrees from government or private universities. This ends up corrupting the entire fabric of education.

Students, seeking some sort of way to make themselves marketable in the job market, will only obtain education if it results in some sort of valuable degree. Hence the reason people are willing to spend hundreds of thousands to obtain these degrees.

If you really want to disrupt education then you need to be directly figuring out how to change those perceptions. Start with the basics of making educational courses that would be considered the best in the world and then leverage the powerful benefits of an internet connected computer to create the best learning experience for the student. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. The way universities are teaching now is good but it is just not efficient and too costly overall. Take what works from traditional universities and then solve the weaknesses through the benefits of a computer.

When I took udacity courses I just felt that the quality wasn't fully there. They felt more like something that would be a supplemental project you would take if you were studying a traditional course. You still need a way to obtain those key foundation skills before tackling the bigger projects.