[lefnire]

I don't have anything certain, nor have I seen anyone answer this certainly - though this question has come up often. Obviously MOOCs will eventually be the way - huge companies are getting behind the movement; courses taught by best-of-best (eg Thrun, Ng); sustainability, etc. But I don't think we're quite there yet - I'd give it 3yrs. A recurring answer by hiring managers and recruiters is that they don't (yet) respect nanodegrees, at the various companies they recruit for. A Masters is much more respected (and looks like the majority minimum required degree for a decent ML job; no need for PhD, good luck with a BS). One option I'm very seriously considering is Georgia Tech's online MS "OMSCS" https://www.omscs.gatech.edu. It's a legitimate accredited MS at $7k (more expensive than Udacity, but _much_ less expensive than most MS programs). TMK it actually uses some Udacity courses in lieu of actual courses - they're partnered (hey, it might actually just be a nanodegree disguised as a university MS). I think it's sort of a transition from academia-proper to MOOCs, and it's respected by employers. So that would be my personal recommendation.

I'm going to be doing a lot more research in coming weeks. I'm going to publish my findings to my podcast http://ocdevel.com/podcasts/machine-learning and maybe drop what I find here too. Hopefully there will be some more answers here to pool from.

[interdrift]

I'm mainly looking to acquire the knowledge and less the academic 'prestige' part of things at the moment altho I definitely agree that a Msc would be much more appealing to a recruiter as you said they are in a somewhat 'transitioning' stage or rather they are starting to have some faith in MOOCs