| OK, let me try again. I'm the accrediting institution. For my degree in physics, you have to pass this online class on electrodynamics from MIT, because it's the best one there is. And you have to pass this other online class from Caltech on special relativity, because it's the best there is on that. And so on. The "accrediting institution" doesn't need to own any of the course content. It can take the best of the online courses that are available. And the online stuff that's available tends to be the best of the available lecturers. That's why it could be less expensive. You don't have to have classrooms. You don't have to pay the lecturers' salaries (though you do have to pay license fees on the video). You have to have a very small amount of administration, and you have to write and administer tests that show whether the student actually knows the material. Western Governors University already runs on something like this model, except that I believe that they use their own content instead of the best available online content, and they only have a limited set of majors. And, I didn't say "standardized tests". The tests would probably belong to the accrediting institution. But there need to be tests, so that they can tell that you actually learned something, instead of just sitting through the videos watching something else on your phone. |
I'll risk sounding like an asshole or making an ass of myself and just straight up ask: Have you ever taught before? Somewhere other than a top ten CS or ivy league university?
What you're proposing sounds way more expensive than the status quo.