Ask HN: Will MOOCs eventually disrupt below-average US grad schools? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Will MOOCs eventually disrupt below-average US grad schools?

6 pointstrg25 comments

I personally don't think you can (or should!) replace the 4-year undergraduate experience, and I don't think you can kill Ivy League schools. With that said, do you think MOOCs will ever become a viable alternative to below-average, overpriced US graduate schools?

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Below-average and expensive masters degree programs will get disrupted sooner than most people think. This is already happening (with coding bootcamps, for instance).

Will MOOCs disrupt them? I'm not sure. But it will be some combination of online content (e.g. MOOCs) + curriculum + mentorship + community. e.g. Check out what Thinkful is doing.

Undergraduate programs are safe for the near future (but not forever) because employers are conditioned to value college diplomas. I checked with 30+ hiring managers and recruiters in the Valley last fall, and there was almost no willingness to hire someone who didn't go to college. I predict this will change in 15-20 years, and going to college will become a choice, not a necessity for many jobs.

Ashwath Damodaran (NYU prof) has written an interesting post about it here: http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2014/01/if-moocs-fail-is...

I spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff (I'm working on an education startup, details in bio). I'd be delighted to chat more. My hacker news ID is also my gmail ID.

If you mean 2-year, 100%-course-based masters degrees (i.e. the style that doesn't include research or a masters thesis), I think probably yes. If you mean the classic masters degree (some courses, some research, capped with a thesis), I think probably no. If you mean PhD-level research-oriented education, I think probably also no.

As an employer I like the horrible attrition rates that MOOCs report. Anyone who completes a course in a MOOC has demonstrated a character trait that I value -- self-direction.

This is, as you say, not enough to displace Ivy League degrees (though I see them as indifferent predictors of success, coupled with high correlation to an entitlement mentality). (Disclaimer: my daughter is looking at Ivy League schools this week and in particular had a fine time touring Dartmouth's engineering department on Friday).

But for the right situations the MOOC schools will triumph. Fine by me if 80% of MOOC students drop out. That last 20% is golden.

I believe the 'horrible attrition rate' is ignorable. The true measure is cost per pupil that completes the course. Does that beat the current system?

See, all those dropouts have negligible marginal cost. They signed up because there was no significant hurdle to signing up (cost, commitment, stigma). They may not have even been 'students' i.e. a person who commits a hefty portion of their life to study.

Many quit because they were just trying it out, or curious, or any number of things. It doesn't matter. It was free to start; its free to stop.

A MOOC is valuable if it educates pretty much anybody at all, given the extremely low cost.

The people going to the below-average, overpriced graduate schools are usually the ones who are looking for the check in the box for the advanced degree so the can get promoted. MOOCs will only replace these schools when employers look at them as equals.

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