Leveling the Ivory Tower

[Valin]

The Enterprise Blog: Andrew P. Kelly

May 2, 2012

 

A funny thing is happening at some of America’s most prestigious colleges and universities. For more than a century, university prestige has been based almost entirely on a sense of scarcity—the more selective the admissions process, the greater an institution’s reputation.

 

But there are signs that a completely different dimension of higher education prestige has emerged: openness. I profiled the Hewlett Foundation’s role in driving this trend in last month’s Philanthropy Magazine, arguing that open online courses have become a part of some prestigious universities’ brands. In the same way that firms pride themselves on being “green,” top universities are touting their efforts to be “open.”

 

The list of institutions that offer “massively open online courses” (MOOC) is growing. MIT and Stanford led the way with blockbuster announcements last fall. MIT’s “MITx” initiative will grant certificates to students who take the exams; Stanford’s first MOOC attracted 160,000 students, 23,000 of which sat for the final exam in far-off corners of the globe. Princeton, Penn, and Michigan have recently made moves to develop an open, online presence. Not one to be left off a prestigious list, Harvard yesterday announced “edX,” a joint venture with MIT similar in style and scope to MITx.

 

(Snip)