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A comment on Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?.

Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? by 1053r on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:13PM (#3939896)
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 for free upon graduation. Lastly, (and perhaps least), it is to have a piece of paper that certifies that you are smart and work hard.

Fundamentally, the elite schools are in no danger from these online education initiatives. It is the state schools, community colleges, and for profit schools that are in danger. If a school can't figure out a value add beyond simple education (which the elite schools have had for centuries), that school is in trouble.

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Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? by waterlesscloud on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:17PM (#3939913)
While I agree with most of your points (though it's also possible to imagine ways around them), it seems a bit much to say that the classes themselves are not a very large part of the value these institutions offer.
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Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? by jquery on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:44PM (#3940061)
Another reason is so you can rub in everyone's faces for all eternity that no matter what they do, they will never have had such a precious experience at MIT or Harvard as you have had.
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Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? by rohwer on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:53PM (#3940104)
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.

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Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? by astrofinch on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:21PM (#3939942)
$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.

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Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? by objclxt on Monday May 07, 2012 @01:31PM (#3940000)
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 without such help.
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Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? by droithomme on Monday May 07, 2012 @05:37PM (#3941081)
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.

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Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? by pitt1980 on Monday May 07, 2012 @03:00PM (#3940443)
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

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Re:Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business? by astrofinch on Monday May 07, 2012 @11:53PM (#3942166)
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...
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