MOOCs Score Statewide University Contracts

The MOOC juggernaut achieved a major coup today, as ten large university systems jumped onboard higher education's online class bandwagon. According to a story in siliconvalley.com, major state systems, including New York, have joined MOOC's parade.

The article notes that today's announcement "shows the extent to which, for cash-strapped university leaders and policymakers, the MOOCs and the platforms they are built on offer an irresistible promise of doing more with less -- to scale up education and help students move more efficiently toward a degree."

Coursera, which offers the MOOC package cited in today's siliconvalley.com story, makes $3,000 per course, plus $25 per student enrolled in a MOOC course. It doesn't sound like much, until one multiplies $25 by, say, 25,000 students. That sum is $625,000 for one class. The state systems annually enroll tens of thousands of students, and they typically take more than one course.

I leave the higher math to you.