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Comment by etempleton | Hacker News Reader

I suspect it was just not a sustainable program from a revenue perspective for either school and has the risk to lower the schools reputation and suck away resources.

2U is one of the biggest for-profit higher education companies and seemingly one of the most successful ones, often partnering with other colleges and universities.

I am suspicious of any of the for-profits being able to sustain a business. Most end up failing because, as it ends up, education is not very profitable if done correctly.

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> I am suspicious of any of the for-profits being able to sustain a business.

Blackboard has been around a long time and seems to do okay. Instructure (makers of Canvas) has done very well. Both sell Learning Management Systems (LMSes), not educational content itself. Big textbook publishers, like Pearson, have been managing incorporating online educational materials.

But yeah, don't expect a unicorn to come around and "disrupt" education.

> But yeah, don't expect a unicorn to come around and "disrupt" education.

The easiest way to get a bright-eyed SV entrepreneur to try to take something on is to tell them, "That industry is non-disruptable."

Well people have been saying that for decades around education, so my intuition is that this represents decades of bright-eyed failure.

The people most in need of education have the least money. Monetize that. Education is a public good that requires social subsidy and personal interaction.

Monetize not having money? Pray tell your easy solution.

Create some sort of entity that hands out money to people who agree to pay the money back in the future, plus some percentage interest.

If anybody figures out how to do this, they could make a lot of profit.

That quip was intended as sardonic. An obvious contradiction.

Fair enough - can be hard to tell here, I've learned to not so easily assume a ridiculous comment is made in jest.

Blackboard isn't a good example here. They are mostly discussed for their questionable business practices and shit product.

I would do some more research on 2u, they do not have a good reputation (indeed, almost no for-profit education companies do...the sector is very fashionable because a bunch of Chinese companies have made tens of billions in this market...but it is replete with frauds).

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