How online learning credits could change higher ed's business model - Amy Scott, Marketplace

Budget cuts have taken such a big bite out of California’s community colleges and universities that thousands of students are turned away from required classes. “No college student should be denied the right to complete their education because they could not get a seat [in] the course that they needed in order to graduate,” said Darrell Steinberg, president pro tem of the California senate. If it passes, the bill could be good news for companies like StraighterLine, based in Baltimore, Md. The company sells low-cost intro courses like the ones students are having trouble getting into. “What it also does is open a much larger marketplace,” says Burck Smith, StraighterLine’s CEO.“A larger marketplace will ultimately drive prices down, will raise quality up, and that’s a good thing.” Others looking for a bigger slice of that market are providers of those massive open courses -- companies like Udacity and Coursera. Classes on artificial intelligence and gamification have been wildly popular, but few colleges accept them for actual credit. http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/education/how-online-credits-could-change-higher-eds-business-model