Isn't there a statistical issue akin to mortality being swung by massive infant mortality.
The barrier to entry to MOOCs is very low (submit your email address, for example), whilst the barrier to entry to traditional courses is high (pay large amounts of money and often move home too).
Many people will, I imagine, sign up for MOOCs but fail early, within the first couple of weeks. There's a similar thing in multi-year university courses I think, some will fail their first year, those that make it through that will have a far higher rate of success.
The lower risk/barrier to entry is part of the reason to offer MOOCs IMO, you're enabling many people to try tertiary education for whom the risk-reward analysis is simply too adverse otherwise.
Surely provided MOOCs enable more people to acquire a given educational level they are working, whether that is cost effective or not I guess is the question to ask then.
The barrier to entry to MOOCs is very low (submit your email address, for example), whilst the barrier to entry to traditional courses is high (pay large amounts of money and often move home too).
Many people will, I imagine, sign up for MOOCs but fail early, within the first couple of weeks. There's a similar thing in multi-year university courses I think, some will fail their first year, those that make it through that will have a far higher rate of success.
The lower risk/barrier to entry is part of the reason to offer MOOCs IMO, you're enabling many people to try tertiary education for whom the risk-reward analysis is simply too adverse otherwise.
Surely provided MOOCs enable more people to acquire a given educational level they are working, whether that is cost effective or not I guess is the question to ask then.