Georgia Tech and Udacity Partner for Online M.S. in Computer Science

Georgia Tech and Udacity — the online courseware project led by Sebastian Thrun — have announced a plan to offer an accredited M.S. Computer Science program online. The two organizations are also working with AT&T. This is the first time a major university has made an actual degree available solely through the MOOC format. Getting a degree in this manner is going to be much cheaper than a traditional degree: "... students also will pay a fraction of the cost of traditional on-campus master’s programs; total tuition for the program is initially expected to be below $7,000." U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said, "Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have quickly become one of the most significant catalysts of innovation in higher education. As parents know all too well, America urgently needs new ideas about how to make higher education accessible and affordable. This new collaboration between Georgia Tech, AT&T and Udacity, and the application of the MOOC concept to advanced-degree programs, will further the national debate — pushing from conversations about technology to new models of instruction and new linkages between higher education and employers." Georgia Tech is looking at the big picture: "At present, around 160,000 master’s degrees are bestowed in the United States every year in computer science and related subject disciplines; the worldwide market is almost certainly much larger, perhaps even an order of magnitude larger."

Comments

damn kids

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually had to go to school and meet people and have sex with girls. Now you can just do it from your mom's basement? you kids have it so much better these days,

I have a suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

For all those Silicon Valley Tech companies that can't get "qualified" people, might I suggest they use their billions and pay for us unqualified Americans?

It'll be a tax write-off and great PR - "We understand that there's a problem with STEM education in this country and we're going to help. We need qualified people, so we're going to be good corporate citizens."

They won't do it though because they are all full of shit. There is no shortage and they'd rather of H1-Bs.

They'd rather spend their money on lobbying Congress, legal fees for getting around laws, etc... than actually solving the "problem" - which doesn't exist, anyway.

Re:I have a suggestion

[Required Snark]

Mod this up. H1-B visas are the new indentured servitude, which is why US corporations want an unlimited supply. The STEM shortage is bogus.

Re:I have a suggestion

[TWiTfan]

They tried to hire you, dude. But for some reason you wouldn't take the generous $15,000-year/no-benefits package they offered, so they had to import Sanjay.

Re:I have a suggestion

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that what this is? Enrollment is coming from AT&T & GT corporate affiliates and a lot of the funding is coming from AT&T.

All they said was

partly supported by a generous gift from AT&T,

Define "generous". $100? $1,000, $10,000 $1,000,000? $Billion?

And where is the money from Microsoft, Facebook, Intel, IBM, Oracle, and every other Silicon Valley company that's bitching about not being able to get "qualified" people?

Why didn't THEY do this first? Stodgy old AT&T got in first?

Why isn't this program free? And don't give me this BS that by charging money you'll get the "serious" students. Take a FREE class on Coursera sometime and you'll see how serious we are.

Back in the days when Silicon Valley were true innovators - back when Hewlet Packard, Fairchild Semiconductor or those greats were paving the way to our modern economy with real innovation and brilliance, they never bitched about "we can't get qualified people! Waaaa!"

Hell no! They wrote checks to the local universities and said, make us some engineers.

Did they say, "We need people to hti the ground running!"

Hell no. They took new grads, had them work under an old fart for a while (or they figured everything out for themselves for REALLY new stuff) and groomed.

Today's Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are nothing but over-entitled posers who just want to suck everything they can out of us.

Re:I have a suggestion

[ranton]

... to realize that if the wages for STEMs have remained stagnant this past decade, there can't be a shortage. It's soooo blindingly obvious ...

While I am not a fan of our H1B program, stagnant wages do not mean there is no a shortage. If there is a shortage of Doctors then the wages will go up because everyone wants to live forever. If there is a shortage of Lawyers then wages will go up because no one wants to be a pro se defendent. But if there is a shortage of IT workers then most companies just hold off on upgrading their old systems because they would have to pay too much.

If we stopped the H1B program, wages for IT would certainly go up. But innovation and improvements in IT would go down because companies would have to be much more careful about where they spend their money. Foreign companies wouldn't have to worry about this, because they would still have access to cheap labor, and US companies would start falling behind (or at least lose some of their edge).

So there is a shortage of IT workers. There is a shortage of IT workers that companies would be willing to pay. And that is a problem not only for these companies, as it would become a problem for the whole country if we turned off the spigot and lost our lead in tech to the rest of the world.

I don't know what the real answer for this is, because as I said before I think our current system isn't a very good solution. But the solution, and even correct diagnosis of the problem, are not as "blindingly obvious" as you make it seem.

Re:How about offer a BS first?

[jlf278]

It makes more sense to offer a Masters program online than a Bachelors. Masters programs stick strictly to one discipline and are often targeted toward working professionals who would not benefit from extracurricular activities, living on campus, having access to abundant campus resources, job placement services, etc. Offering a Bachelors degree online means you have to get the whole university represented for general education classes and some of the normal gen ed requirements (e.g. speech and communications class) might be impractical to replicate online.

Re:so help me to understand this

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an incredibly short sighted view of why these institutions are interested in this.

Georgia Tech:
The CS department has consistently been at the forefront of improving the educational process. They started the Threads curricula which was praised a few years back for looking at computer science as a holistic process rather that just a technical effort. This extends that push towards providing a full educational experience to the most people possible. It is currently very difficult for a working professional to take the time to participate in an on campus degree program unless they are lucky enough to live in the same city.

Udacity:
This is a great opportunity to legitimize the online course offerings they already give. As well as giving them an opportunity to expand this offering if this pilot is successful.

AT&T:
Already spends a lot of money in tuition assistance and lost productivity for it's employees to go back to school for their masters. If they can reduce the cost and lost time, that's a win/win for them. Not to mention the publicity.

But to take cheap digs at a school for it's geographic location, as well as the other ad hominem attacks against the other participants, doesn't really show any insight into the program they are creating.

PS. I am an alumnus in CS from GA Tech.