Sam McNerney
Higher education is becoming cheaper and more accessible. With an internet connection users can watch TED lectures or look up academic papers. Now Udemy.com, a website that tries to, “disrupt and democratize the world of education by enabling anyone to teach and learn online,” is making things even easier. Udemy has recently launched “The Faculty Project,” a website that offers free enrollment to classes taught by some of the world’s best professors. The Faculty Project is currently offering 15 courses taught by professors from Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Yale and Stanford – an impressive lineup – for no charge. Courses range from Ancient Greek Religion to Foundation of Business Strategy to Brazil for Beginners.
There is no reason to think that access to higher education won’t continue to become easy and cheap. A recent article by Sarah Kessler from Mashable reported that in 2010 Bill Gates predicted that, “It’s very clear that five years from now, on the web, for free…you will be able to find the greatest lectures in the world.” It seems like he was correct.
