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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.”'"
I want to see free education thru the PhD level as some countries offer.
A PhD is free in the United States. I just completed my Doctorate and I was paid $20,000 per year to do it. In the sciences and engineering fields, at a research university, you're paid off of grant money. Tuition usually either waved or paid for you off the grant.
Now if you go into a non reacher field like the humanities or the pure mathematics, you will have to pay your own way.