I’ve said this once and I’ll say it again. MOOCs are part of a trend to a new two-tiered higher education system, with public and for-profit universities caught in the middle. By the early 2020s, we’re going to have elite college and universities on the one side of the divide, and public universities and for-profit colleges (the latter won’t survive this evolution) competing with profitable versions of MOOCs on the other side of this divide.

As MOOCs evolve, the issues will be accreditation and developing the technologies necessary to make this virtual world into one as close to the college-going experience as possible. That will require money, hundreds of millions of dollars, in fact, which is why MOOCs will evolve into something that will charge for tuition. But between companies like Apple and Google (though, not necessarily those companies specifically), elite colleges like Harvard, MIT and Stanford, money and accreditation issues to develop MOOCs into an iCollege or iUniversity shouldn’t be a problem. Public colleges will lend their accreditation to courses — especially niche-specific courses like nursing or teacher preparation — in order to be a part of this system. This is why they’ll survive this evolution.

Make no mistake, though, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and other elite universities will remain as expensive as ever. They are an escalator to the skies of elite socioeconomic standing by four years of attendance and graduation. No MOOC or eventual iCollege could replace that.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost