They have already made courses and made them available online. It was a massive undertaking. It is not too much to ask for their effort to be funded at the modest level they have requested.
They're asking us to crowd-funded a crappy profit-making scheme.
The course will be of questionable quality. You don't learn math without doing math. That's a scientific fact. Their "free" offering is "audit videos." I'd encourage anyone to look up the mass of literature about interactive engagement versus passive learning. You feel like you're learning, but you're not. People basically would waste their time.
That said, it is counterproductive to make that case in the instance where someone is trying to use public money to provide a public good. The correct place to protest is when the university sends you your tuition bill or when they decline you admission. The instructors have no access to or control over the billions in their university’s endowment fund.
Right now, our options are to either fund this effort or not to fund it. I hope that we fund it.
Your "protest" over a (1) tuition bill or (2) admissions rejection is not going to matter. You'll be sent to collections in the case of (1) or ignored in the case of (2).
Publicly funded universities should contribute _something_ back to the public. Generally it's fucking football or basketball (assuming you pay for the right TV service).
You are barking up the wrong tree.
:)
It wouldn't cost that much as a % of public education costs.
Khan Academy claims to be doing this, but their videos are not particularly high quality.