449041 external_news 1442442572 1475893661 The idea that change was afoot for higher education burst on the public consciousness in 2012 with Sebastian Thrun’s announcement that he had resigned his professorship at Stanford to begin offering free, high-quality college courses to the world. It was a bold statement, but it was only the first. Stanford and MIT each announced shortly afterward that they were offering MOOCs. Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, became a spokesman for short-format lectures that would reach millions. Start-up capital poured into research labs and storefront software companies more reminiscent of the early days of the Internet than of the staid, bureaucratically top-heavy business of running a college. The difference captured the attention of international news media.

]]> 2015-09-16 47223 50875