Is higher education doomed?

Ryan Bradley:

A dire statistic, followed by a troubling fact: The cost of education has increased 550% since 1985; and the sector has, in the words of Coursera founder Daphne Koller, "not benefited at all from leveraging technology to reduce cost." Coursera is a social entrepreneurship company. It puts college courses online, for free. And, in just a year since its creation, it has registered 680,000 students in 43 courses offered by Princeton, Stanford, Michigan, and the University of Pennsylvania. Today, the start-up announced another dozen universities are joining, which Koller says will add about 20 more courses by the fall.

So, can education be fixed? Or, following the example of Peter Thiel -- whose "20 Under 20" fellowship pays young entrepreneurs to eschew higher education -- is the system so broken it needs to be swept aside? Or is there, through Coursera and others like it, a new model emerging?

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 23, 2012 3:50 AM
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