My wishful thinking may yet come true. They're calling it MITx and other colleges might follow in its' footsteps.

I read this just the other day - http://chronicle.com/article/MIT-Mints-a-Valuable-New-Form/130410/

But I'm a month behind it seems -
http://mitx.mit.edu/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/education/mit-expands-free-online-courses-offering-certificates.html?_r=3&hpw=

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/12/19/mit_to_launch_online_only_graded_courses_free_to_all/?page=full

My thoughts: I think of this as an alternative or supplement, not an outright replacement of traditional education. Obviously, there are some things you can't learn this way. "It's impossible to learn how to plow by reading books." It is something that I think will help reduce the cost of tuition. A person could learn when they want for free and only pay if they want to try to take exams to get credit. They haven't said what the cost for receiving credit will be yet, but I am glad that they have said it will be affordable and not the full cost of tuition. I think that there are a lot of people discouraged with the current system and many of them don't really need a 4-year degree and the debt that comes with it.

This will be different from an online course in that people can learn at their own pace and, unless I'm mistaken, they could learn at the library and not use MIT's Open Courseware at all if they don't want to and still take the exams to get the MITx credit (I haven't been able to find anything clear about this though so I might be wrong). Also, I like that people can choose what they want to learn. Maybe schools won't get so much flack for trying to be social engineers.

How could this help? Let's say someone has what amounts to 2 years of credit from MITx (or whatever colleges follow this). A potential employer might see this and think it's useful, but it's not a degree. Maybe the employer will hire with a probationary or apprentice period instead of a full-blown salary that he/she might have given to a degree. After a successful 2 year period, the person with MITx credit is given a job that might have been given to someone with a degree.

During that 2 year period, the employee was able to make some money instead of going further into debt going to college for 4 years. Also, the employee could have spent some nights continuing to learn when he/she had the time and might have earned a few more credits after figuring out what credits would be the most useful in the field of work.

I might actually prefer this way. You can "know about" a lot of things from school, but you don't truly "know" a thing until you get in the industry a few years. I think you do learn faster from work. I remember a businessman saying they thought you learned 70% faster doing the work than you would at school.

That's my thoughts anyway. I'm interested in reading on how people think something like this could be implemented and what effect it could have. I can't dictate where the conversation goes though :)

The traditional class-room learning method has never been a perfect fit for all students. Having a wider range of options for all types of learners is a good thing, so long as it doesn't create shortcuts to a diploma without the actual knowledge behind it.

I certainly agree that experience is a great teacher, and it also helps to cement learning concepts. Sort of like, "I think I get it but I'd really like to see this principle in action." Followed by, "Ahhh, NOW I see." That describes me fairly well since I'm more into application than theory. And that can apply to all sorts of disciplines, be it management, engineering, social work, etc.

I'm in a school for electrical engineering. I'm actually worried that I'm going to have to quit because I've been doing poorly all around. To save on housing I moved in with my aunt, who I have spats and arguments with on a regular basis over silly stuff (And some of that stems from religious differences). My classes and courses have been faltering with me now retaking a course, Differential Equations for the third time, and I'm in $10k debt starting this semester with only about 5 credit hours to show for the past year. I've also lost all my grant money because my parents make too much, and because I screwed up and accidently added $13000 to our estimated income on the school's tax sheets (I thought it was asking for what portion of our reported income wasn't taxed), and my sanity has basically been lost between bouts of depression, argument and stress of school, enough so that I've had to be put on medication for the second time in my life to handle the depression.

So yeah, if that was a viable system, I'd jump at the chance. Hell, I could stay home and work at it on my own pace and ability rather than forcing myself through the usual worry and stress that's come with me so far. This university, it's an amazing place. A hotspot of multiculturalism and backgrounds, bringing students from as far as India and China and Isreal to students living 20 miles downtown. But back home with my family, is an even better place to be given my situation.

I don't see this as really cutting down on the cost of education by that much. You still need somebody to write and grade tests and you still need somebody to monitor progress. And it's not likely to work for the majority of the students. When the class sizes grow much beyond 30 students per teacher it gets really tough to keep tabs on the students and make sure they're doing well.

I do however think that it's likely to cut down on the cost of people who are getting a degree just because they're interested in the subject without necessarily wanting to use it, and I think for those folks this could be a real benefit.