YouTube Offers College Credits from Watching Videos | Hacker News Reader

YouTube Offers College Credits from Watching Videos

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54 pointsjcgoette43 comments

Nothing about the title is correct

"Learners begin by watching course content on the Study Hall YouTube channel, and if they're interested in formal coursework beyond the videos, they can sign-up to participate in full online courses at ASU led by the same award-winning faculty that teach all ASU courses,"

https://www.statepress.com/article/2023/01/asu-partners-with...

Yeah, that's a terrible title, this is an ASU and Crash Course initiative, the only thing YouTube is doing here is providing video hosting.

ASU is typically on the forefront of initiatives like this. They were the first major university to offer college credit for edX and Coursera courses as well. Unfortunately, I still think the cost for college credits is ridiculous and this is more expensive than going to community college or using something like Sophia.org

My local community college tuition is $185.50 per credit hour, so community college is not always cheaper.

I'd hate to have my college credits killed by Google once they get bored of this.

>>I'd hate to have my college credits killed by Google once they get bored of this.

The good news is that once Google gets bored of this then any college credits earned should still be valid because the credits are backed by ASU. Google is only the delivery and distribution partner.

FTA: "This credit can then be used at any of the hundreds of institutions that accept credits from ASU."

> should

Unless of course something goes wrong, and you need to contact them for assistance.

You would be contacting the ASU, not Google.

I feel like Google should just divest projects into their own companies with a majority stake in them. That way the high caliber engineers don't have to work on maintaining old software, and the divested company can hire lower paid engineers to keep projects going for a long time

The credits aren't given out by Google, they're from Arizona State University.

I am not enthused by this. There seems to be a lot of work out there on the idea of making some parts of education more accessible. This basically offers you freshman year general education courses through ASU, with the videos hosted on youtube. But this also charges $400 a course, which means most people would be better off taking courses at their local community college.

Agree. My local community college is $104 per credit hour. You probably get a better in person learning experience too.

My local community college is $185.50 per credit hour so the $400 fee would be quite the savings.

$400 for course credit? $350 scholarship pricing?? WTAF.

I paid $6/unit ($12.50 in 2022 dollars) at my community college back in the day.

... by 2009, FIU, a public university was charging 150 per credit, and a normal class was 3 credits. Also, they would add bullshit remote learning fees, parking fees and gym fees that most students would never make use of.

My local community college currently charges $185.50 per credit hour.

That's positively criminal. :(

I'm not familiar with the ASU, but will these College Credits be only useful to students in the United States, or students from Europe will be able to convert it to ECTS?

That's a positive development. It seems reasonable to predict that something that was only available to an elite class of people would be among the first things that we would all optimize our innovation for, to make the content of college courses available to everyone else. As the effect of simple demand and innovation, the ability of colleges and universities to confer durably elite status on their graduates can only get decimated each year.

Knowledge used to be an honest signal of social status, but it just isn't anymore. It's great though because we have generally more knowledgable people everywhere who can apply incredible tools, and it lifts all boats. However the colleges and universities will need a new way to corner the market on conferring elite status, as I think their v1.0 product of producing graduates merely aligned to "theory" hasn't really worked or produced anything that commands popular respect. Sure, we fear for our jobs, but there is no willingness, and the biggest problem the social studies grads who have taken the helms of institutions have now is suppressing mockery of themselves online. But they're smart people, I'm sure they'll figure something out. May a hundred flowers blossom.

> However the colleges and universities will need a new way to corner the market on conferring elite status

While historically colleges and universities might have been concerned about that, they gave up on that business model many decades ago. The modern business model of colleges and universities is to provide a dating network comprised of similarly-aged, like-minded people who all reside in close proximity to each other.

While services like Tinder could pose some threat to that, I think you'll find that such services have only served to enhance that college network by providing greater discoverability within that network. The "all reside in close proximity to each other" feature offered by colleges is an important feature. The reality is that most people aren't otherwise going to travel cross-country to find their match. These Tinder-like services haven't figured out how to solve for that part on their own, leaning heavily on proximity that already exists.

So, I don't think there is any immediate threat on the horizon for colleges and universities.

> There is a $25 fee if the learner elects to sign up and begin coursework, and an optional $400 fee to receive college credit for each course. Learners who register before March 7, 2023 will receive special scholarship pricing of $350 per course

That’s pretty steep for European standards, not sure what the value proposition is for us.. but I guess one could use it to get credits and a study visa to graduate? Idk.

I don't think European students are the market for this (maybe British students, now that they're copying USian approaches to funding) because your market can't be privatized and bound to platforms. At least as far as I can tell. State unis and smaller private LA colleges in the US have ceded space that's been privatized like this (the "State" in "ASU" is a nice example of this if you know the history of ASUonline), and the credit/FTE situation is dire in light of the demographic challenges to universities right now. Somebody in another comment says "lectures are cheap" and no, my dude, they aren't, not for provosts weighing FTEs against a chancellor telling them to maintain student/fac ratios at 2010 levels. Hank Green ain't getting retrenched.

This is pretty great, $25 for course work and lectures and you pay $400 for credits only if you pass and like your grade. Universities should be incentivized for you to pass, not just show up.

Careful not to create a wrong incentive where universities just churn people through a program that slowly becomes impossible to fail.

Compared to the existing programs where teachers are pressured to pass people because you can't just fail 70% of the students because it makes the passing rate too low for your school?

These two problems are not exclusive.

Neither approach sounds better. :(

Hmmm, that seems like it would lead to perverse incentives too. eg:

"They spelled their name mostly correctly. Clearly they pass."

"Incentivize to pass" the institution that makes and grades the tests - what effect do you think that will have?

It would be like today where some public universities with tight budgets that will do pretty much anything to keep international students who pay top dollar.

> 25$ fee to sign up and begin coursework, and an optional $400 fee to receive college credit for each course

Does this mean to watch targeter course videos it's 25$ but to receive any credits you must pay 400$ extra?

This seems ... Weird. Why not just find other videos targeted to your course work for free?

Studying is a very focused and intense activity that also requires great deal of concentration and deep thinking.

Studying on YouTube is akin to sitting in a busy open market square and trying to study. Difficult to do that.

Lol even more free time for ASU students to go to wild parties

Is this one step closer to Costco University? Will the “second year” be Google certs? I have so many questions but think this is a good step.

Higher education driven by commercial interest? Course lectures that include mandatory advertising? Only teaching vendor specific knowledge? All while squeezing the last cent out of students just like we do now with textbooks?

I crave tenure @ CodeLabs University ;)

https://developer.android.com/courses/android-basics-compose...

That’s WGU model. Pass/fail and you earn a ton of certs.

Title is both heavily editorialized and wrong.

Hank Green's smug face? Hard pass

I've personally learned a lot from him, plus he seems genuine. Definitely taking a look at this one

There is an absolutely vast amount to learn at university beyond that obtained by listening to a lecturer lecture. Sure, lecture are great, but they're one aspect of gaining knowledge about a particular topic. I personally think that for some skills you really have to struggle and try to solve difficult problems with them, and having a teacher of some variety you can interact with who points out your mistakes is just as, if not more, important as listening to lecture be delivered.

Yes, beyond "lecture" there is also "lab". And a step further there are "studio" and "shop" classes.

Lecture and talk is cheap. Talking with a microphone to a wall of students even cheaper. Youtube is the cheapest.

Otoh, studio time, tools, materials. A vastly stronger sauce, but much more expensive.

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