
Established education providers v new contenders - dhruvp
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21714173-alternative-providers-education-must-solve-problems-cost-and
======
dhawalhs
The small infographic in the Economist article is based on the data published
by us (Class Central). You can find such statistics and analysis of the MOOC
space in 2016 in my article - Monetization over Massiveness: A Review of MOOC
Stats and Trends in 2016 [1]

[1] [https://www.class-central.com/report/moocs-stats-and-
trends-...](https://www.class-central.com/report/moocs-stats-and-trends-2016/)

~~~
garysieling
Thanks for writing these - they're very helpful.

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pauljaworski
I'm very lucky to have started learning programming before these companies
were figuring out their business models. I took the very first Udacity courses
when they were completely free and was able to launch my career as a software
engineer with the knowledge I gained from them. I was making barely enough
money to survive at the time and had no idea if I actually wanted to make a
career out of programming. If I had been forced to commit such a large amount
of money at the time, I highly doubt I would have continued forward with the
classes, and worse, they would have started to feel like work instead of fun,
which was the issue I had with traditional college in the first place.

I sincerely hope that there continues to be sources of high quality course
materials available without the risk and stress of payment attached so that
other kids can have the opportunities I had when I was getting started.

~~~
misterhtmlcss
I'm taking some Udacity courses now and mine are free, from what I understand
the courses themselves are all free unless there is an inherent cost, however
if you want a nanodegree or some other mentoring etc, then those added value
options will require joining as a paid member which is as it should be.

As well I agree with you, for me I've learned recently that having a mentor
and paying is demotivating for me. I like clocking hours and hours studying to
learn software development on my own and pushing myself is far more
motivational than having someone else adding structure and deadlines. I would
have never thought that until it happened and I was like wow I'm slacking off
now rather than clocking the huge hours I was doing before on my own.

------
TACIXAT
I am really disappointed by my Masters program online courses because of the
quality of the low cost online courses available on the web. I pay 3000
dollars a course for a professor reading slides and forced discussion. On the
other side I have paid 27$ for 70 hours of very high quality content.

Professors in universities are not primarily educators. Many are contract or
research focused. Teaching is their secondary job. Online courses have
instructors who are designing courses and highly invested in the course
quality. I think we need some pure educators in universities, otherwise
they're going to get burnt when the online courses figure out accreditation.

~~~
garysieling
I always thought part of the value of a degree was the people you meet, so if
you're getting a degree purely through online interaction it's hard to see how
the school could compete long-term.

~~~
misterhtmlcss
Wow paying $10k+ to network, that's great value. I might as well go shoot
myself now, because that's just idiotic. Sorry for being harsh, but that's
something I couldn't disagree with more and sounds like someone coming from a
very very privileged background too.

~~~
garysieling
Well, I grew up probably under the federal poverty line, which tends to make
undergrad cheaper, and in that sense I'm quite privileged ;)

I got a CS degree so that I could be employed, but have come to greatly
appreciate the friendships that I made in school. MBAs are sometimes sold on
the basis of the networking benefits, so my perception comes from that.

------
flor1s
I'm not sure if we see a return of the MOOC or just growth in various
alternative formats, because the term MOOC actually has a very specific
meaning which is not always reached by the services/companies mentioned in the
article.

I would for example consider Pluralsight to be just "Online Courses", and the
price tag on Udacity's nanodegrees makes me wonder whether we can consider
them to be truly open (I attended university in The Netherlands where the cost
of tuition for a year is lower than the cost of doing a $200/month nanodegree
at Udacity for one year).

~~~
rhc2104
To be fair, the curriculum of Udacity is available for free. The nanodegree
cost is supposed to be for assignment grading and mentorship.

------
shokunin
"However it is done, the credentialling problem has to be solved. People are
much more likely to invest in training if it confers a qualification that
others will recognise."

Exactly. Immigration officials don't care how many MOOCs you have taken.

------
codingdave
Rather than trying to fit MOOCs into the current paradigm, society may just
grow to embrace more ambiguity in education. Traditionally, it was very linear
-- elementary --> secondary --> college --> graduate, and at some point you
jump into the working world. Now, you still jump to the working world, but
continue flexibly on a variety of educational goals, with or without
accreditation, and with courses of varying quality. But people care more about
what you can accomplish that what papers you hold.

Some people will still choose the traditional 4 year college degree and the
cycle of deconstruction, analysis and reconstruction that it teaches, while
others will forego that for a more pragmatic approach of MOOCs and the working
world. Either way should be accepted.

------
kxyvr
One auxiliary thing to consider with MOOCs and higher education is how it
changes the power balance between administration and faculty. Faculty members
own their course notes and take them with them when they retire or move
universities. My understanding with MOOCs, and certainly it could be
incorrect, is that the administrator of the MOOC owns the course and material
even if the faculty member leaves. This leaves a clear conflict of interest
for the administration because if MOOCs do take off in a substantial way, they
can not only reduce the number of faculty, but reduce their negotiating power
as well. That would shift power at a university.

Now, this has nothing to do with the quality of MOOCs. Mostly, it's just to
say that I think there are conflicts to be mindful of as certain people and
organizations either support or not support these courses.

------
samblr
For people who are passionate about learning - MOOCs have come as a blessing.
In 2016: I've seen a VP grade candidate finish Andrew NG's Machine Learning
Course with good grades and certification on linkedin. And a desktop support
person in our old office has got a new job as jr programmer.

------
ismail
I recently found out a "verified certificate" is not actually verified in any
way by Coursera.

It seems they have dropped the verification step they used to have before
completing assignments [1].

Coursera have initiated this change without even an announcement or any
communication. I feel it is a bit disingenuous to claim the person completing
the course has been verified when they have done none of that.

[1] Typing & PhotoID - [https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-
us/articles/209818953-Se...](https://learner.coursera.help/hc/en-
us/articles/209818953-Set-up-ID-verification)

------
pyoung
I am a huge fan of MOOCs. I strongly believe that these courses and this style
of education will be one of the greatest by-products of the modern internet. I
was a happy and eager participant in the 'early days' (I took ~2 years off of
work in 2013-2014 to re-charge, and took a number of online courses for fun),
and here are some of my thoughts:

\- Completion rate is a very poor metric to measure the 'success' of the
concept. I attempted more than a dozen courses, but only completed ~4-5 of
them. But that doesn't mean I didn't learn anything. For a number of courses,
I got a good way through the material (75%+) but got distracted/side tracked
(in one particular case, I was 90% of the way through a very challenging and
interesting course[1] when a buddy and I decided to do a last minute trip to
Mexico for some camping/surfing. Needless to say, it was hard to find internet
access out there). Of the courses I completed, at least two of those I had to
attempt more than once. But regardless of the final outcome, I learned a ton.
There were a few courses that I didn't find interesting and walked away from,
but for the most part, I learned something from every course, regardless of
whether I completed it or not.

\- By traditional metrics, I wasn't the best student in college. There were a
number of reasons for this, but a key reason was the inability to focus during
lectures. I just hadn't had enough life experience to learn how to optimize my
ability to pay attention in class for multiple hours a day. In high school,
the class sizes were small and the teachers were engaging enough to make it
easy for me. In college (big public university) there were hundreds of
students in each lecture and the professors were more interested in research
than they were in lectures (with a few exceptions). I now know that I need the
right balance of coffee, adequate sleep, and exercise in order to be able to
sit through 4+ hours of very dry lectures, but it took years of hard won
experience to find that balance. MOOCs are amazing because they let you
optimize the 'lecture' time to best suite your schedule and your 'optimum time
of focus'. And the forums were a great, asynchronous way to share knowledge
between TA's and students (as opposed to my college experience where you had
1-2 office hours per week, with a dozen+ students competing for attention).
Had MOOC-like teaching material (video lectures, forums, online exercises)
been available when I was in college, I have no doubt that I would have done
way better.

\- Considering how expensive traditional college is getting, I think a very
cool and plausible alternative would be to allow students to spend a few years
doing internships/apprenticeships part time, and doing nano-degrees and MOOCs
part time. A company could pay for the classes, as well as a stipend/salary
for the internship. I learned programming and statistics on the job (seems
like it's getting more rare these days for on the job training) but being able
to take a step back and take more traditional classes on Coursera helped fill
in some of the knowledge gaps that had been developing over the years. I feel
like mixing both practical, in demand skills and theoretical knowledge at the
same time could result in a much more engaging and deep understanding of the
subject matter as opposed to the traditional way of all theory in college
followed by all 'hands-on' in the real world.

Anyways, a bit of rant. But it's been a while since a MOOC post has made it to
the front page of HN, and it's a holiday weekend!

[1] [https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-
languages](https://www.coursera.org/learn/programming-languages) Back when I
took this, it was just a single course. Looks like they broke it up into 3
parts. Would have been nice to have that option when I took it!

~~~
garysieling
In one of the previous MooC discussions some people indicated that they felt
guilty for not finishing classes, which might be a deterrent.

I think there is value in having someone pick good ones, so you don't waste
time starting things that are poorly recorded, etc.

The site up thread is good for this- [https://www.class-
central.com/](https://www.class-central.com/)

My project ([https://www.findlectures.com](https://www.findlectures.com)) is
built to help discover standalone lectures (conference talks, etc), which I
hope helps the people who feel guilty not finishing stuff :)

------
posterboy
The title is disingenuous, because the "providers" are the same universities
"providing" traditional professors and infrastructure. What's new is that top
universities can compete at a larger scale.

Still, if they can provide further, then because they are standing on the
shoulders of giants, so it's not really a competition if the gigantic amount
of competing unis has any relevance.

------
sidusknight
Anyone have any MOOC recommendations?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Machine Learning by Andrew Ng [https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-
learning](https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning)

The maths is fairly straightforward and the concepts are explained well.

~~~
posterboy
I started that one and feel like the format doesn't take much advantage of the
medium: the videos are very much like traditional lectures. Of course being
free is an immense plus, but then so are many books.

Specifically, I take issue with NG's foreign accent. That's just me looking
for a reason, but it's the second time after Agarwal on MITx (and that wanted
me to purchase his book). Also, I can already record lectures and play them
back at will, only I have to leave the house for that. Besides that, these
courses were rather classical university courses, it seems.

My gripe is, the videos are too long and my attention span too short. The
first 2 weeks I could even pass just from what I learned reading HN, so I
suppose I really prefer the socratic method instead of frontal education. Many
would claim I was simply lazy and they'd be right, alas also derogitory.

~~~
posterboy
note to myself: otoh, paying a fee for the effort to run a course is most
reasonable if the value added comes in form of a book to keep. Actually that's
what I am missing in those courses, where instructors don't provide even
scripts.

------
jupp0r
I found the whole special report about lifelong learning to be very well
researched. Sorry for the paywall link.
[http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21714169-techno...](http://www.economist.com/news/special-
report/21714169-technological-change-demands-stronger-and-more-continuous-
connections-between-education)

------
misterbishop
MOOCs are the McDonalds-ification of education. It's disgusting honestly.
Western Capitalism is utterly failing to provide a decent, affordable
secondary education even to its relatively privileged middle class, so instead
they try to convince us that watching a few videos is a decent substitute.

We know how capital views education, just get a service job and watch the
horrific training videos. That's what Khan Academy is for aspiring skilled
laborers.

Note that the conclusion is "the credentialling problem has to be solved".
Credentials are an attempt to commodify learning. So instead of pesky B.S.'s
and M.A.'s you'll get some print-at-home Happy Meal prize. No thanks.

According to The Atlantic, it would cost $62B/year to make state colleges
tuition free. Last month it was revealed that the Pentagon covered up a report
showing how they failed to save $125B over 5 years simply in bureaucratic
waste. So while The Economist is telling us how watching videos online is a
reasonable alternative to a university education, the kind of funding that
could revolutionize American higher education is basically pocket change to
the War-makers.

The rush to online education is just one more way Capitalism is hollowing out
the United States.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/heres-
ex...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/heres-exactly-how-
much-the-government-would-have-to-spend-to-make-public-college-tuition-
free/282803/)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-
burie...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-buries-
evidence-of-125-billion-in-bureaucratic-
waste/2016/12/05/e0668c76-9af6-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html)

~~~
geomark
Have you ever taken a MOOC? A quality one, like Andew Ng's Machine Learning,
or Data Analysis and Statistical Inference from Duke.

~~~
wbillingsley
Some of them are good. But I doubt people will look back on their MOOC-taking
years with quite the same level of nostalgia and camaraderie as their college
years...

~~~
jononor
Not that I see that as a big problem, but - as long as the social component is
strong enough, I don't see why not. I sometimes get nostalgic for the times I
played e-sports competitively (Battlefield 2).

------
sherlockgopher
I read yesterday that MOOC are on an all time low with regard to subscription
and the number of users finishing it, on account of them charging $$ and
removing free certifications

~~~
jononor
Link?

------
TwoBit
I wish the author identified what MOOC means.

~~~
scotu
there's few things as useful and as irritating as acronyms. But a quick google
search is going to give the answer to your question

------
mproud
Could anyone provide a summary? tr;cr (Too restrictive; couldn’t read)

~~~
garysieling
Assuming this matches the print version, it discusses the history of MooCs
from Khan Academy forward, to paid credential programs, and how people are
being assessed.

Some notable points:

1\. Universities should work to define a more "premium" experience to compete
with nanodegrees and the trend toward short, very modularized classes

2\. Online programs have not cannabilized universities as expected (more
likely people in their 30s retraining)

3\. Second half is all about providing credentials, which is hard and not well
solved. They list a bunch of startups, LinkedIn, etc working on it, but it's
just a maze of certifications, so it's hard to know what any of them mean

There are a couple articles in this series. Other interesting points:

1\. They mention a trend toward evaluating people for the ability to retrain
(i.e. looking for personality traits like curiosity, empathy, ability to break
tasks into parts, learn quickly).

2\. Also a trend toward combining previously unrelated fields (marketing +
algorithms, for instance).

3\. Since the U.S. doesn't do much vocational training, they look at other
countries, and say that in those places people drop out of the work force
younger (i.e. they run into difficulties retraining to keep up)

4\. They talk about a lot of scenarios where people are commonly left out of
the workforce entirely (no path from truck driver to coder, hard for people
just out of school with no experience, there are some gaps in the middle of
some careers as well)

Since this is on the topic of "life long learning" \- shameless plug for my
project [https://www.findlectures.com](https://www.findlectures.com)

~~~
bootload
nice @gary, spent a bit of time finding things I'm researching. Not sure how
you'd describe it, Search engine for ^stuff^ (vid,sound) on learning? One
thing I had trouble finding was Hal Ableson, 6.001 MIT lectures. [0] I know
where it is, but I couldn't find it, searching for it by terms. Terms tried:

* lisp algorithms

* MIT lisp algorithms

* MIT lisp Hal ableson

How come?

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Abelson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Abelson)

~~~
garysieling
Good question - short answer is I've been focusing on finding collections that
people don't know about, but I'm working on adding the MIT lectures - should
be up in a day or two :)

I'd describe this as a discovery engine for lectures - the goal is to
replicate some of the experience of browsing a library for interesting books
(vs. traditional search, which is more about minimizing clicks between you and
an answer)

~~~
bootload
_" I'd describe this as a discovery engine for lectures"_

I like that idea. Thx @gary for this work, interesting in its own right, could
prove ^very useful^.

