Of course the idea isn’t perfect, but it’s a start. I just think we have to re-invent how education is accessed and earned in the 21st century. Teaching students the way Greeks did it 3000 years ago is too expensive, too wasteful, and literally antiquated.

It’s one of the very best things I can imagine.

Will Marre

My experience thus far, shows me that while the internet and software in general allow us to communicate ideas cheaply, it also comes with a price in terms of quality. Computers can’t judge the “quality” of a paper or the logic behind solving a math problem. As a result, they tend to simply “ask for the answer” and compare the value given to a number in their memory. Or worse, simply asks the student to answer a series of multiple choice questions.

These solutions fail students for two reasons. One they don’t require students to thoroughly show their work (which means they can come to the right answer but have the wrong logic). Second, they often tell the student they are wrong when they are actually right (because of the order of calculations done in the problem, or a variation between the number of entered digits to a problem and the number of digits stored in the software). Granted, this technology is getting better all the time, but the overall flaw still remains.

All the same, all the power to you. There ARE several things that may be in your favor overall, but I believe the problem isn’t getting the kids (students) involved in activities as much as forcing them to their rooms or even better our national library to READ and PRACTICE problems. (Through this boredom great creativity and patience is forged)

1. I almost believe the sponsors are unnecessary and harm your overall goal. I would suggest contacting a group like Wikipedia with your idea. They get chaff for getting things wrong from time to time, but their value to the online educational environment is unmatched (In my own opinion). In fact they already have a Wikiversity and a Wikibooks project with some impressive results,

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page

If you want to push for a free online education, why reinvent the wheel, check out what’s already been done and try to build on it.

Actually another school comes to mind when I see this as well, MIT. Yep, at this website:

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

they have a vast list of course materials for both the novice and the advanced student available for free! Granted, they’re not all course videos for viewing, but this is a start.

I’d personally recommend that if you were to build this up, use video instead of text and keep your students awake by implementing voice conversations in small groups. (If members won’t participate they students should be able to report them anonymously).

Furthermore, if every test is a take-home test, your students are just going to look the information up in a book, or worse, use the search bar on the internet. That means you’ll have to find a way to test their knowledge, not for testings sake, but to poke and prod them into studying in their room instead of going out to a party.

I might note that you can avoid trolling problems (where students who don’t want to learn come online and disturb your classes or worse) by implementing a safety deposit system. In this way, students who enroll at your university have to put down a $1000 safety deposit (this is cheaper than any university you’ll find in the US). This money remains with the university until the student graduates and ensures that they will not disrupt classes ect. ect. Trolls won’t pay this type of money to troll, and you’ll have the source of your income. (Plus you should have them show up in person to register for classes, or tests to ensure their identity)

While the money will be returned to the student at the end of the four years (if they do not cause trouble “on campus”) the money is still in your hands for that time period. This can take care of your money problems (perhaps). To understand why, take a rough estimate of the number of students you are expecting on your web page and then multiply that number by a 1000. If you can convince a “sponsor bank” to give you a nice interest rate on those funds then you set up a win-win situation for everyone.

1. Your university gets funding from a set of money held within the bank for four years (I’d say they owe you a nice interest rate given the amount of money you’d be investing in their bank and the time period for the investment).

2. Your students get a free education (they get the money back at the end)

3. The bank gains a profit by charging others even higher interest rates while the money stays with them. (That’s just how the cookie crumbles)

And everyone is happy!

NOTE: You might consider adding a completion incentive clause to this where the student must also forfeit all or a portion of the money if they drop out of school (or remain inactive for a long period of time). In the US, we have a major problem with students dropping out of college. Whether you like it or not, if a good portion of your students decide to be lazy and drop out and you keep the $1000, then ironically it could be of benefit to you. At the same time, this penalty would encourage students to stick it out and keep working towards their goals. If it isn’t then perhaps it wasn’t important to them anyways. This is… almost a negative win-win.

anyways, those are my thoughts.

Thank you,
David Evans

Providing a tuition-free, virtual university education could be a turning point for the next generation. Of course there is a cost to providing the best-of-class lectures and materials. But these could easily be off-set by allowing businesses that have a vested interest in the educational process advertise on the university website. Such as Apple and HP. Others could sponsor classes that tie into their markets, e.g. chemistry/pharmaceuticals, engineering/manufacturing, computers/IT. While others just might want to hire the best and brightest, e.g. Cisco and Google.

Great idea – now lets get some follow up actions to make it happen.

The last thing we need is for them to access any stage of education. They WILL find a way to further their cause. After all, it’s about the bottom line for them. If you’re Hersheys you have to ask yourself “Why would we pay for this? Can we make a profit?” This is not the direction we want to take education. Unbiased free thinkers, who are left to form their own ideas is what the nation needs. Not a mutant hybrid generation of brand addicted tag hags.

You can bet Visa/Master card will be first in line to “educate” your college students.

You can bet Visa/Master card will be first in line to “educate” your college students.

The fact that young people who don’t have rich mommies and daddies get out of school overwhelmed by student loan debt (or in the near future – probably won’t even have that option due to the credit crisis) is certainly not a “great equalizer”

There are a few tuition-free colleges out there, like Berea College, but they are very hard to get into. Check out this article:
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/060910/18free.htm

I am actually very hopeful about the “new economy” which is beginning to lean more toward barter and other types of “energy exchange”. This “crisis” is actually a good thing, which is going to teach people to live differently, more simply, within their means, and to move toward cooperation rather than competition and greed.