Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Coding course finds ‘sweet spot’ between MOOCs and colleges

Thinkful has raised $1 million in funding from RRE Ventures, Quotidian Ventures and Peter Thiel

People wanting to learn how to code have no shortage of options. There are college courses, companies like Codecademy and massive open online courses (MOOCs).

You don’t need to take an economics MOOC to know that there’s an opportunity cost for each method though.  Take the college course, and you have to pay college prices. Take a MOOC, and you’re losing one-on-one interaction with an instructor.

With most MOOC retention rates hovering around just 8 percent, the odds of actually completing the course – and therefore learning how to code — are slim.…Read More

Student loans: The next bubble?

First the dot.coms popped, then mortgages. Are student loans and higher education the next bubble, the latest investment craze inflating on borrowed money and misplaced faith it can never go bad? Some experts have raised the possibility, the Associated Press reports. Last summer, Moody’s Analytics pronounced fears of an education spending bubble “not without merit.” Last spring, investor and PayPal founder Peter Thiel called attention to his claims of an education bubble by awarding two dozen young entrepreneurs $100,000 each NOT to attend college. Recent weeks have seen another spate of “bubble” headlines–student loan defaults up, tuition rising another 8.3 percent this year and finally, out Thursday, a new report estimating that average student debt for borrowers from the college class of 2010 has passed $25,000. And all that on top of a multi-year slump in the job-market for new college graduates…

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Fellows get $100G to stay out of school

A billionaire venture capitalist, on a crusade about the value of the expensive college educations that draw thousands of students to the Hub each year, is raising concerns with a new fellowship program that requires students to ditch school for two years, reports the Boston Herald. PayPal co-founder, Facebook investor and hedge fund manager Peter Thiel has offered $100,000 cash to 24 of the best and brightest entrepreneurial young people in the United States with a big stipulation–they must stay out of college for two years to further their scientific and technical ideas…

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Peter Thiel awards $100,000 to entrepreneurs under 20

Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, created the Thiel Foundation, reports the Huffington Post. Last fall, it announced a new fellowship program: It would give 20 people under the age of 20 $100,000 to drop out of school and become world-changing visionaries. More than 400 young people applied. Earlier today, the 24 winners were announced…

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