We’re #3 on Paul Graham’s Frighteningly Ambitious Idea List

But, you have to look at what the larger impact can be with accreditation and Title IV. Even though we are strongly against student loans, being able to work with state and federal governments for grant and work study funds is the best and most direct way we have at hitting "free education for all" status. It's also the quickest way to move out of the relatively small group of students who don't care about accreditation to reach the much larger group that does. It's only by being a reasonable alternative to this group of students that we can apply real pressure to the current system. As long as we aren't accredited, the existing institutions can simply point to that fact and write us off and most people will listen to them.

http://www.open.ac.uk/

Fees are a little higher but only marginally at around $8000 per 120 credits for international students. (A typical degree requires 300-360 credits)

Many degrees can be completed over 7 or more years if it's convenient. But I think there is a minimum time as some coursework is assessed to a schedule.

So there is definitely a market for this type of learning, and competition almost always benefits the customer, so good luck!

Also, we have thought very seriously about the business model of offering classes for free (Udacity model) and charging for certification/one on one. The numbers we see for that model just don't work, even at a large scale. You have to focus in introductory classes with the broadest possible appeal, reduce the difficulty of the course so you don't get 10,000 complaint emails from students who can't keep up, use a MOOC structure that is more about cost control than maximizing learning. Plus, the conversion from free to paid user may or may not be enough to cover the cost of course development. Our model, on the other hand, allows us to pay our professors quite generously for classes that may not have 100,000 students attending and focus more on building our catalog instead of just building the user base.

Yes, the system is rigged against new entrants.

This is an interesting point. I happen to disagree, and I hoped that the author would go on to say exactly why it's wrong, especially dangerously so. It seems like the author rejects curriculum-based courses of study that provide a broad, solid foundation in favor of just-in-time courses of study, in which one learns whatever is necessary at the moment, right before applying it.

My main objections are that

* There are things you don't feel like learning that you would do well to learn. I had a lot of freedom to choose courses during school, which was great, but I am about to graduate with a lot of holes in my knowledge.

* No matter how smart you are, you would benefit from the guidance of a teacher --- guidance through a full curriculum that gives you a solid foundation and imparts onto you important patterns of thought.