Free College Is Now Here … Really

Real Clear Life ^ | August 21, 2017 | Richard Klinsky

[2ndDivisionVet]

Something important happened in the field of education this month.

For the first time ever, any student anywhere can take top-quality courses online in every major freshman college subject, taught by professors from the most prestigious universities, that lead to full academic credit at 2,900 traditional colleges, such as Purdue, Penn State, Colorado State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, all absolutely free.

There is no tuition cost. No text book cost. No administrative or connection fees. No taxpayer subsidy or federal Title IV funding required. And this is not a plan for the future, but a working reality available to students now, already built, entirely as a private 501(c)(3) philanthropy, at an exceptionally efficient price.

The charity that built the courses, over 40 in all, is called the Modern States Education Alliance. It has a bipartisan set of allies that include the nation’s largest public college systems, such as the State University of New York system and Texas State, which themselves serve over one million students and want to improve college access. Modern States is a new type of “on-ramp to college” for any hardworking person anywhere, and a way to cut the cost of traditional four-year college by many thousands of dollars and up to 25 percent.

Now, anyone can go to ModernStates.org, the way they go to Netflix, and choose a college course the way they pick a Netflix movie. There is no charge for the course and no charge for the online textbook that comes with it. The student can watch the lectures at any time of the day or night, repeating any part of it as often as needed. When the student feels ready, they can take the CLEP exam (a well-established, credit-bearing test from the College Board....

[raybbr]

These courses are expensive to provide because of the infrastructure needed to teach this hands on experience.

All these schools exist. What infrastructure costs are there to justify the tuition?

[minnesota_bound]

I just go to youtube and find a video showing me a how-to.

[Falconspeed]

Excellent points. MOOC’s are a “fantastic resource” for students who wish to learn subjects at lower prices and lower biases. I agree that the dropout rates are high, 50% or more.

My experience is that bright students use MOOC’s to brush up on classes they need, such as intro chemistry, intro wine tasting and intro finance.