I did Andrew Ng's machine learning MOOC course.

It was very good for a MOOC, and better than my worst university classes, but I'm hesitant to say it was even as good as an average university course.

I don't think my education would have been as good entirely composed of such classes, but I'm willing to admit some of that might be preference, educational style I was raised with, etc. However, it seemed much lighter and less demanding than Id expect from an actual university ML class.

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...

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).