Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? | Hacker News Reader

Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

forbes.com

13 pointsiProject26 comments

The reason to attend MIT or Harvard (as an undergraduate) is not to take MIT or Harvard classes. It is to hang out with MIT or Harvard students, have discussions after class with MIT or Harvard undergraduates, grad students, and professors, be challenged by having those people as peers. It is to have an entire network of well connected people all over the globe in the highest reaches of every organization on Earth for free upon graduation. Lastly, (and perhaps least), it is to have a piece of paper that certifies that you are smart and work hard.

Fundamentally, the elite schools are in no danger from these online education initiatives. It is the state schools, community colleges, and for profit schools that are in danger. If a school can't figure out a value add beyond simple education (which the elite schools have had for centuries), that school is in trouble.

While I agree with most of your points (though it's also possible to imagine ways around them), it seems a bit much to say that the classes themselves are not a very large part of the value these institutions offer.

Another reason is so you can rub in everyone's faces for all eternity that no matter what they do, they will never have had such a precious experience at MIT or Harvard as you have had.

Agree completely. I've attended both types. Even though, oddly, some state school campuses are being saved by online programs.

The free online education programs remind me of the initial chess online experience. Yes, it's different, but over time, the improvements in convenience, price and quality make online chess a forerunner of future online education programs. There is still a local chess club, but I can play against quality opponents anytime, online.

$200,000 is an awful lot to pay for this networking possibility. There's no reason why putting high leverage individuals together should cost so much money. What would a competitor with universities on the networking front look like?

Keep in mind that $200,000 will pay for a lot of plane tickets, so the competing service could involve lots of world travel and still be much cheaper than elite schools.

This is a little OT, but it hits home so I want to correct this misconception: Harvard (and MIT) are very affordable, and the majority of students attending do not pay full tuition. Indeed, at Harvard families with incomes under $65,000 pay nothing at all, and those with incomes between $65-150k are heavily subsidised and asked to pay between 0-10% of their income for tuition. I wouldn't have been able to attend without such help.

These sorts of rebuttals about costs from colleges (not just Harvard) are often rather misleading when they claim costs only include things not covered by a "financial aid package", which is almost entirely comprised of fairly high interest loans (fairly high interest given they are close to zero risk as both there is no way to get out of them and most are federally guaranteed).

Harvard gives these numbers:

Tuition and fees for 2010-2011: $36,142

Room and board for 2010-2011: $12,308

Average financial aid package for 2010-2011: $41,300

This is presented to look like the average student pays $7150 a year to attend Harvard. (Not including incidental expenses, books etc.)

This is misleading because not mentioned is that the financial aid package typically includes a Pell grant of a maximum of $5500 (average $3,593), leaving the remaining $35,800 covered by loans at 8-10% interest. Other than the Pell available to low family total income US citizens, the financial package is not scholarship style grants that come free and clear. The student ends up over $140,000 in debt upon graduation and Harvard gets their entire $48,450 each year.

The term "financial aid" is intentionally misleading and used against naive parents and students in articles and personal exhortations to convince them that college is affordable to them. We don't talk about "financial aid" when discussing loans for houses or cars, that would be considered misleading by nearly everyone. Saying college is affordable because you get "financial aid" consisting mostly of interest loans makes no more sense than saying that mansions and Hummers are affordable because "financial aid" consisting of deferred loans is available so that you won't have to pay hardly anything during the first four years. Actually the mansion/Hummer case makes more sense since their loans are not ones you can not get rid of no matter what (not even bankruptcy) and that if you don't pay will cause serious legal problems like revocation of needed professional licensing.

seems like the Theil Fellowship gives participants a harvard quality social network (if not better)

http://www.thielfellowship.org/

down market, something like http://codeacademy.org/ might give you a state university qaulity network for a fraction of the cost

It's too bad there's no legal precedent for investing in the future income of individuals, otherwise maybe the Theil Fellowship could be a profitable and growing business...

No [0].

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridges_Law_of_Headlines

Also, from the article:

  As long as students who take edX are blocked from the branding and professional networks 
  that their parents pay so dearly to obtain, such top schools have nothing to fear from giving 
  away what the teachers are getting paid modestly to deliver.

University teaches a lot more than the course material.

Hah, was going to write the same comment ("No.")

With online education really gaining traction, the major university brands need to be out in front of this trend. With Harvard and MIT throwing their names and money into the mix they buy themselves a chance to steer the direction of the trend and become major players. Sitting on the sidelines and watching things change around them, completely outside of their control, was not a good strategy. This parallels many other industries in which large established brands face obsolescence or major competition in the face of recent technological advancement. I'm sure someone at Harvard or MIT modeled out quite a few scenarios to justify the cost.

edX does more to nudge out no-name schools than prestigious universities - and if anything will likely be a strong revenue generator for top universities going forward.

A few scenarios:

* Would you pay tuition to be taught by [well-meaning] no-name professor Dave at no-name Community U?

* Would you be willing to pay a nominal fee to receive a certificate for edX achievement?

* Would you be more willing to pay for a certificate from Harvard/MIT, or UVA?

The online education trend will act as a channel for the most prestigious schools to capitalize on their brand without diluting their stature. And we'll see them making hand-over-fist money by outcompeting community colleges and other online programs that don't have the weighty reputations.

I love all these free online classes.

But, what's going to happen is that profs like me are going to continue using them in our classes in the same way we have been using textbooks, which will liberate a little time for us to provide more one-on-one help. At least, that is my prediction. But, you know, predictions are hard, especially about the future.

[1] http://www.jose-vidal.com/2012/05/online-classes-are-just-ne...

Most people are not going to be able to follow the classes from MIT and Harvard. (Certainly, there are a lot of people who can't get into the schools who could follow the material just fine.) Remember, this material is already available in books, but that didn't put the universities out of business. But if you look at how many people are struggling with math classes and having to hire tutors, I don't think it is fair to assume that by watching videos from MIT lecturers would suddenly make it all make sense.

So much for all the professors on food stamps. Now they have to compete with free classes from Harvard.

http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/

the first nobel prize winner graduate of edX will change everything. i sometimes think, should online universities also be strictly selective?

Isn't most of the "prestige" of a nobel prize winner normally directed at the university at which they were conducting research (assuming it is an academic heavy field) at the time?

In my experience, every institution that has any connection whatsoever to the Nobel Laureate claims him or her. Undergrad, graduate school, research location, even high school (one local high school claims multiple Nobel Laureates -- unusual, but I don't know if it's unique).

Why? Selective education is used in order to focus limited resources on certain people. That isn't really problem online, unless you want to be an ass and restrict people's abillity to improve themselves for no reason.

That's why it's so scary for universities and elites. One of the moral validations for restricting the life chances of certain groups of people has been removed. Others will pop up I'm sure.

In the worst possible scenario, edX may nibble at the edges of the Harvard Extension school enrollment.

Forbes is just outdoing themselves with the headline bait lately.

Agreed. If they thought it would put them out of business, would they do it? It makes more sense to ask if it will put community colleges out of business.

Online education has existed for at least 10 years, and in recent years community colleges have been unable to keep up with enrollment. California community colleges are so over enrolled they wanted to start charging more money for popular classes. If college were entirely about static material such as readings and lectures libraries with video tapes and textbooks would have put them out of business decades ago. Most people need help understanding the material and apparently benefit from personal interaction. Finally many physical sciences and engineering labs are impossible to conduct outside of the setting of university of college.

Would you like the next surgeon you visit to have a certificate on his wall from YouTube Medical School.

possibly, in fact, why do kids need go to college at all in the near future?

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