As Milton Friedman described the world as flat in terms of business, the world is now becoming flat in terms of knowledge. Countries that have less than world-class courses in all of their colleges and universities will fall behind.
Up until now the discussion of the global revolution in free online world-class courses has been focused on an organization-centric view of how the traditional educational system will be affected. This is the wrong viewpoint.
We should instead take a student and customer-centric view. Rather than asking the question of how do we get more money for more education, the better question to ask is how do we get more education for less money. This makes it an issue of productivity rather than cost.
And with the new knowledge distribution models of Khan, edX, and Coursera, the cost to the consumer is only his or her time. With each of these efforts working with hundreds of thousands of customers, the programs can focus on how to continually reduce the time cost of their customers through more effective delivery techniques. The productivity lessons of business and industry are finally reaching education.
In addition to the global revolution in free online world-class content, there is a companion revolution brewing in the Mozilla badges project. Once business and industry appreciateand embracethe concept of badges that define the exact skills required for success in a given job, the unknown risk of a vague generalized degree will become untenable. The content of a basic liberal arts degree has hardly changed in a century. Badges requirements can be changed instantly to reflect changing skill needs. Badges will offer individuals at all age levels the potential and ability to re-enter or move up in the job market.
These new models of free world-class online content and badges as skill assessment systems will take root first in the developing countries, which have a massive need for knowledge and are not restrained by tenured vested interests.
However, parents and students in developed countries will quickly raise the issue of whether what their college or university provides at exorbitant cost is actually better than what is now available for free. Many colleges and universities will have a difficult time providing a convincing justification of their superiority. If students can take online courses for free, they should be allowed to test out of traditional courses with full credit for only the cost of assessment. This would dramatically reduce the cost of traditional education while accelerating the degree completion time for students.
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