So What Exactly Happened to the MOOC?

In 2012, Massive Open Online Courses Were Supposed to Revolutionize Higher Education. Then They Disappeared—But Only from the Headlines

Ten years ago, in May 2012, Harvard and MIT announced the launch of edX, their nonprofit platform for Massive Open Online Courses (better known by the acronym MOOCs). Together with Coursera and Udacity (both launched in the first months of 2012), these three platforms promised to make “the best education in the world freely accessible to any person,” as Coursera put it in their mission statement. The New York Times called 2012 “the year of the MOOC,” and the Chronicle of Higher Education covered “MOOC mania.” The promise of MOOCs …

by Valentina Goglio | December 15, 2022

Californians Shouldn’t Need a High School Diploma to Go to a Public University

To Make Up for the Pandemic-Era Student Achievement Gap, Our Higher Ed Systems Should Skip the Requirement

by Joe Mathews | May 3, 2022

Why should you need a high school degree to go to university in California?

In 2020 and 2021, the state’s public schools ditched their students, shutting down K-12 campuses for over …

Can America’s Status-Obsessed Universities Figure Out a New, More Inclusive Way Forward?

Three Higher Ed Leaders Share Their Ideas—And Wish Lists—for the Post-Pandemic Future

by Jackie Mansky | January 15, 2021

American higher education will not be the same after the pandemic. But in the wake of this crisis, what should be changed for the better? Zócalo brought together a panel …

A Micro-Loan at a Time, an Atlanta University Is Bridging the Racial Achievement Gap

How Georgia State Challenged a Broken Educational Model and Skyrocketed Its Graduation Rates

by Andrew Gumbel | August 26, 2020

Students like Tyler Mulvenna drop out of college all the time, for all the wrong reasons.

Mulvenna was bright and resourceful and full of promise when he enrolled at Georgia State …

Merced, Where California Stores Its Big Plans

Unfinished Dreams for High-Speed Rail and Higher Education Falter Statewide But Find a Home in the Central Valley

by Joe Mathews | February 25, 2019

Have any grand but unfocused ambitions? Have an idea but no strategy to execute it? How about any half-finished projects clogging up your garage?

Send them to Merced. That’s what the …

The Pioneering Cornell Anatomist Who Sought to Bring ‘Honor’ and ‘Duty’ to College Life

At the Turn of the 20th Century, Burton Green Wilder Railed Against Frivolous Activities and Thought Privileged Students Should Hold Each Other to Higher Standards

by Richard M. Reid | November 8, 2018

In 1901, Cornell University students created a new holiday on campus, called “Spring Day.”

Many faculty members objected to the holiday, but few were as visible and vocal as professor Burt …

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