Why some of the best universities are giving away their courses - Katherine Long, Seattle Times

Why would any university — especially now, when so many are straining to pay the bills — give away the store? Each has answers. But basically it comes down to these: To serve the greater good. To win a public-relations race. And, most especially, to enhance reputations. "One of the great drivers in higher education is reputation — who's the most innovative, which encourages people to push the envelope in what is a slow-moving field," says Josh Jarrett, deputy director of postsecondary success at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation is watching all of this closely. In May, Harvard University and MIT announced a $60 million collaboration to offer free online courses; it's called edX, and the Gates Foundation has awarded several million-dollar grants to discover how these classes might best help boost learning, especially by marrying those courses to community-college classes. With top-tier universities offering free courses, "it became easy for others to follow," Jarrett says, "and hard for others not to follow." http://seattletimes.com/html/pacificnw/2019133492_pacificpedupunk23.html?syndication=rss