re: Udacity and Coursera

What happened with Udacity and Coursera (and other MOOCs) was interesting. Many researchers and investors assumed that thousands of people who otherwise might not have a chance at college would flock to cheap online courses. Indeed, thousands started the classes...

However, very few finished. The ones who finished were largely autodidacts who, in another era, might have spent hours learning about a given topic in the library. In fact, many people who already held graduate degrees took the MOOCs as a way to learn more about another field.

Thus, I would imagine that taking (and finishing) a MOOC has become a signifier of intellectual curiosity and persistence. Those qualities are difficult to identify but extremely desirable.