In terms of academics and research, MIT is a world-class university. In addition, it is playing a leading role in a major change that is going on in higher education. This IAE Blog entry draws on the following article:

Carey, Kevin (1/22/2012). MIT mints a valuable new form of academic currency. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 1/28/2012 from http://chronicle.com/article/MIT-Mints-a-Valuable-New-Form/130410/.

The following quoted material summarizes what MIT is doing in terms of making its academic course offerings available to the world:

MITx is the next big step in the open-educational-resources movement that MIT helped start in 2001, when it began putting its course lecture notes, videos, and exams online, where anyone in the world could use them at no cost. The project exceeded all expectations—more than 100 million unique visitors have accessed the courses so far.

Meanwhile, the university experimented with using online tools to help improve the learning experience for its own students in Cambridge, Mass. Now MIT has decided to put the two together—free content and sophisticated online pedagogy—and add a third, crucial ingredient: credentials. Beginning this spring, students will be able to take free, online courses offered through the MITx initiative. If they prove they've learned the material, MITx will, for a small fee, give them a credential certifying as much.

The article contains a brief discussion of some of the educational ramifications and some of the potential challenges of this move. Here are some examples:

• How will MIT’s high academic standards be maintained in these distance learning courses?
• Will other institutions accept successful completion of an MITx course for transfer of credit? Somewhat similarly, will employers accept successful completion of a course and/or a coherent collection of courses in terms of hiring?
• Information has not yet been released as to the amount to be charged for a credential indication successful completion of a course.
• Will the content, rigor, and quality of these courses help to set worldwide standards that will be a challenge to other colleges and universities?
• Some courses are much more suited to inexpensive distance learning than others. For example, how will the grading and feedback be handled in humanities courses or in art courses, etc?
• Stanford University made a course available in this mode last fall and is planning to make more courses available. It is reported that more than 100,000 people signed up for the course and 20,000 successfully completed the course. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/stanford-university-is-offering-a-free-artificial-intelligence-course.html Will we get a lot of competition among various institutions?

As the quality and reputability of distance learning continues to improve, schools at both the precollege and higher education levels will have to deal with the impact of a new type of learning opportunity and competition. Right now, both levels of educational systems are able to handle transfer of credit from other institutions. Suppose that a large number of both precollege and higher education courses become available at no cost aside from some sort of certificate of completion fee, and the standards that are maintained are indeed good enough to that it is appropriate to count the courses just like transfer credits are counted. This could have a profound impact of precollege and higher education finances.