How Web-Savvy Edupunks Are Transforming American Higher Education | Fast Company
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/138/who-needs-harvard.html

Fast Company Magazine

"The Internet disrupts any industry whose core product can be reduced to ones and zeros," says Jose Ferreira, founder and CEO of education startup Knewton. Education, he says, "is the biggest virgin forest out there." Ferreira is among a loose-knit band of education 2.0 architects sharpening their saws for that forest. Their first foray was at MIT in 2001, when the school agreed to put coursework online for free. [agreed ?

Education at the crossroads

here are three choices that anyone offering higher education is going to have to make. MIT and Stanford are starting to make classes available for free online. The marginal cost of this is pretty close to zero, so it's easy for them to share. Abundant education is easy to access and offers motivated individuals a chance to learn. Scarcity comes from things like accreditation, admissions policies or small classrooms. Should this be free or expensive? Should this be about school or about learning? If I were going to wager, I'd say that the free, abundant learning combination is the one that's going to change the world.

Actually, there isn't one, there are three choices that anyone offering higher education is going to have to make.

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