Massive open online courses discover global talent - Tyler Falk, Smart Planet

We’re starting to learn more about how massive open online courses — free online classes from some of the world’s top universities — are being used. The four major organizations Coursera, edX, Udacity and Udemy already have millions of users. But while the appeal of gaining knowledge from Harvard or MIT, among many others, is strong about 90 percent of participants never finish or even start their classes. Still, there are real benefits to offering free higher education to anyone in the world. Namely, they’re helping universities discover talented young people around the world whose talents might otherwise be overlooked by major institutions. The Financial Times reports on one teenage boy from India who was accepted to MIT after his skills caught the eye of the professor who then wrote him a letter of recommendation to attend the university, a win-win for both student and school. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/massive-open-online-courses-discover-global-talent/16274