[mikehuffman]

I am going to make a wild prediction right now. Taking into account that 2012 seems to be the year of the "legit" free online schools. I am going to predict that within 5 years a person will be able to get a high-school or college degree (possibly accredited) from Khan Academy...and it will be recognized as legit by peers and employers alike.

[droithomme]

I think that is a fair prediction.

A follow up to that is to ask whether accreditations mean anything at all at this point. A high school diploma from a public school is known to be not worth anything presently as it doesn't even certify if the recipient is literate or knows basic math. Employers and colleges know better to rely on a high school diploma as evidence of anything, this is why they still have to test for skill level.

Are college degrees worth anything either? That is uncertain. Few employers validate whether someone really has the degrees they claim. Tech shops don't accept a bachelors in lieu of a programming test during an interview. Whether one has a degree is considered quite irrelevant since it is known that there are developers with no certifications or diplomas whose talent and skill surpass that of Computer Science diplomates from the finest institutions.

Why even bother with credentials with they don't really indicate anything useful.

[mikehuffman]

In my 15-20 years of work history, to my knowledge, I have never had an employer confirm my academic credentials. Credit score? Yes! Criminal history? Yep! Whether I am academically qualified for the position? Nope! In particular (in my younger days) I "inflated" some of my academic credentials and achievements. They were simply accepted at face value.

[DaveMebs]

Education credentials (especially college degrees) represent the ability to apply yourself towards, and accomplish, a stated goal over the course of multiple years.

[veb]

I'm not sure about your prediction.

I have been hearing impaired since birth, and I wear hearing aids. However, I 'evolved' to lip-read and read body language. School was invaluable to me, for making friends, figuring out how to deal with jerks and asking lecturers and tutors the right questions.

Not until I was in my 4th year at uni that I realised something was _very_ wrong - how did I know what to ask, if I didn't realise I'd missed it? :-)

These days, I am in a programming job, however I quite often hear something and go, "what the hell was that". However, with Khans offering captions for everything I pick up such tiny details that suddenly blow my mind and I feel very humbled. It feels like I'm learning backwards.

I hope that in the future, people don't rely on online classrooms, because then they will miss so much other things, that they simply won't realise until it's rather late.

"I have to... TALK to my colleagues?!"

[jessriedel]

I'll take that bet. Care to put your money where your mouth is?

http://longbets.org/

[pitt1980]

the change starts with us

if you have a startup looking for engineers, I would troll the reddit boards devoted to those classes and see who's interested in joining you

you might be able to come up with some pretty good underpriced talent

[mdonahoe]

I hope they don't try for traditional accreditation.

[pitt1980]

I think the "recognized as legit by peers and employers alike" is the important part

I think an alternative to the current model of getting yourself deep in debt to prove you're employable would do society alot of good

[tomjen3]

Well as I understand it, one could study on Khan Academy and use that to get a GED, right?

Then you would only have to be in school when you took whatever test was necessary to get that degree.

Although you could conceivably try directly for university and skip High School completely. Or even skip university, learn to code in your basement and be done with it.

[geogra4]

Why not? I would hope for some sort of certification program.

[mdonahoe]

To me, Khan Academy represents a break from the traditional educational model. I would rather they focus on innovating than proving themselves as being just like every other school.