Free Republic

Online education platform Coursera (COUR.N), opens new tab said on Wednesday it would buy rival Udemy (UDMY.O), opens new tab in an all-stock deal, valuing the combined company at $2.5 billion, as the industry consolidates after a post-pandemic slowdown and heightened investor scrutiny. Udemy shareholders would receive 0.8 shares of Coursera for each held, valuing the company at about $930 million, according to Reuters calculation. Coursera shares were up about 4%, while Udemy jumped nearly 22%. Coursera and Udemy bet that a combined platform will be better positioned to capture corporate demand for workforce training, particularly in artificial intelligence, data...

This autumn more than a million students are going to take part in an experiment that could re-invent the landscape of higher education. Some of the biggest powerhouses in US higher education are offering online courses - testing how their expertise and scholarship can be brought to a global audience. Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have formed a $60m (£38m) alliance to launch edX, a platform to deliver courses online - with the modest ambition of "revolutionising education around the world". Sounding like a piece of secret military hardware, edX will provide online interactive courses which can be...