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Online Courses and the $100 Graduate Degree
First time accepted submitter GCA10 writes "Forbes reports on the latest project of Google Fellow Sebastian Thrun (the proponent of self-driving cars.) He's moved on to education now, believing that conventional university teaching is way too costly, inefficient and ineffective to survive for long. So he started Udacity, which aims to deliver an online version of a master's degree for $100 per student. From the article: 'Udacity’s earliest course offerings have been free, and although Thrun eventually plans to charge something, he wants his tuition schedule to be shockingly low. Getting a master’s degree might cost just $100. After teaching his own artificial intelligence class at Stanford last year—and attracting 160,000 online signups—Thrun believes online formats can be far more effective than traditional classroom lectures. “So many people can be helped right now,” Thrun declares. “I see this as a mission.”'"
If this man is allowed to cheapen the price of an education in this way it could lead to disaster for the Educational Establishment. The government must step in and regulate this market before people get the idea that they're paying too much for a piece of paper with fancy calligraphy. Students must be forced to enslave themselves with massive debt for years in order to enrich the Establishment or they won't believe that there is any value in all the bullshit that is shoveled at them in the name of a Degree.
Whoops, too late.