Free college. Not too sure how they are going to make money, but the idea is very interesting. Here is how it works. Lots of people volunteer to teach classes on line. Students can take the courses and earn a degree from the college. Couple of kickers are - the college is not accredited. And, it only offers two courses of study: business administration and computer science. Well, we can add one more drawback, the name. The University. of the People. Sounds a bit hokie.
However, name aside, this idea has some merit. First is that if employers accept graduates' degrees as valid this could change the status of college financing. I have lived through the time when people believed that employers would not accept a for profit college degree and an online college degree. Hard to imagine that these degrees were ever questioned, and no, I am not that old.
The question is, how relevant is a prestigious degree versus what a student knows? Most college faculty don't want students to passport stamp through a series of prefab courses but want them to actually learn and be able to apply that learning to real life problem solving. Not all students coming out of all colleges can do this, $50,000 a year or not.
This concept of the free college needs to be watched as the graduates emerge. If they can impress employers then we have a viable contender here.
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