Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? • Hacker News Board

Re: Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

#21

Post by rohwer » Mon, May 07, 2012, 5:53 PM UTC

1053r wrote: post #10

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 fo…

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.

Re: Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

#22

Post by RedwoodCity » Mon, May 07, 2012, 5:55 PM UTC

LyleK wrote: post #16

mrbill wrote: post #4

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.

Re: Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

#23

Post by jmvidal » Mon, May 07, 2012, 5:57 PM UTC

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...

Re: Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

#24

Post by Turing_Machine » Mon, May 07, 2012, 6:54 PM UTC

grayed_comments wrote: post #9

diminish wrote: post #2

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).

Re: Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

#25

Post by pitt1980 » Mon, May 07, 2012, 7:00 PM UTC

astrofinch wrote: post #13

1053r wrote: post #10

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 fo…

$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.

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

Re: Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

#26

Post by droithomme » Mon, May 07, 2012, 9:37 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #15

astrofinch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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 wit…

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.

Re: Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

#27

Post by astrofinch » Tue, May 08, 2012, 3:53 AM UTC

pitt1980 wrote: post #25

astrofinch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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.

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...