I do not see this as a problem with Thrun, but as a problem with the current educational system. If MOOC's carried a fraction of the "academic credibility" that college degrees did, Udacity would be a home run already. This will require a cultural shift, and companies like Udacity are sowing the seeds.

As Warren Buffet has said, the courses he took at Wharton barely differed in quality from the ones he took at Nebraska. Our culture is so obsessed with shallow accolades that it is slow to recognize a humongous opportunity right underneath its very nose.

There is absolutely no reason that MOOC's cannot teach many college-level courses as good as or better than their real life counterparts. Unfortunately, the motivation of students largely stems from the aforementioned shallow accolades.

As a filtering mechanism for professional skills, I think the current academic system has some flaws which MOOC addresses nicely, perhaps not as a complete replacement, but a powerful complement. But the reality is, academia should be used to filter academics, and in many industries, a degree represents nothing more than 4 years that could have been spent learning the actual profession and adding value to the economy.