Last year, Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen said “15 years from now half of US universities may be in bankruptcy.”  

So, I guess half of our schools have about 14 more years to go, according to Christensen.

At least part of the reason for Clayton Christensen’s prediction is the rise of online education, including so-called “massive open online courses” or “MOOCs.”

Recently, I completed a few MOOCs, mostly because I wanted to learn about MOOCs first-hand.  I also picked subjects that interested me.

The courses I took were:

Yale – Game Theory (Ben Polak)

MIT – The Challenges of Global Poverty (Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo)

Northwestern – Law and the Entrepreneur (Esther Barron and Steve Reed)

I will share some of my thoughts on MOOCs during my normal Friday posting slot, in three installments: (1) Effective MOOCs? (2) MOOCs v. In-Person Courses, and (3) MOOCs and the Future of Higher Education.