Coursera CEO: Colleges will survive the online education revolution - John A. Byrne, Fortune

His first year on the job has been a whirlwind, putting the 68-year-old educator at the forefront of a revolution in higher education. Just this week, Coursera announced the first MOOC-based MBA degree with the University of Illinois College of Business. In February, Coursera launched a series of “specializations” in which a school offers a sequence of courses along with a capstone project. True disruption to higher education, believes Levin, will take many years and largely affect commuter colleges not known for deep engagement between students and faculty. For universities that sit on the sidelines, there could be significant consequences. Levin predicts that global rankings of universities are likely to take into account the number of people in the world touched by a university’s professors. That would make a global university’s status and prestige partly dependent on a school’s reach, which can be expanded significantly through online learning. https://fortune.com/2015/05/07/coursera-ceo-colleges-will-survive-the-online-education-revolution/