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    Back to To the Point

    To the Point

    Can Higher Education Be Democratized on the Internet?

    Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOC's, began last year when Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun put a class on line.

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    By Warren Olney • May 12, 2014 • 1 min read

    Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOC's, began last year when Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun put a class on line. He quickly enrolled 160,000 students — in more than 190 countries. Now Harvard, Princeton and other prestigious schools are offering MOOC's that reach millions of students worldwide, leading to visions of broader access to higher education at vastly reduced cost. We hear what it's like to take a college course from a computer and what it's like to teach to a machine instead of a classroom. Will MOOC's count for college credit? Will they still be free? Will rich elites still dominate higher education?

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      Warren Olney

      former KCRW broadcaster

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      Anna Scott

      Former KCRW Housing and Homelessness Reporter

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      Evan George

      Director of Content, News

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      Sonya Geis

      Senior Managing Editor

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      Kayla Webley

      Time Magazine

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      Jeremy Adelman

      Princeton University

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      Andrew Ng

      Stanford University

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