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Comment by devin | Hacker News Reader

Amen. The first person to make steps toward getting rid of the ivory tower universities in favor of cheap online accredited degree programs is my hero. I am absolutely amazed there aren't any good options out there for people who want a marketable degree at a low cost using online courses.

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What I think can speak to its power a lot more than just some virtual degree which will probably be overlooked at, is an awesome product/project/etc created by virtual university graduates and publicized as so.

Creating these virtual degrees is pointless and loses respect really quickly. Just like security certifications serve only as a filter for the lowest candidates and don't actually add much to some qualified.

Projects, interests and output talks, b.s. walks. (This is coming from someone who ended up getting a CISSP... sigh)

I agree with you, it's not about the degree itself or the certification. It's about the education, and the confidence it gives you knowing that you've completed certain coursework that others in the field think is important.

As a scaled-back example, I worked through the Stanford iPhone Programming course. It was great, even without videos of the lectures or being able to ask questions. The slides and exercises provided context, structure, introduced material appropriately, etc. Much better than what I'd been able to piece together through tutorials and sample code from Apple. In the end, it was nice to know that I had the same basis that the Stanford students had when they worked on their class projects. Those projects got written up on Techcrunch, too. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/22/stanford-students-relea...

I find it a little ironic to decry the "ivory tower" in a discussion about a site filled with free, online lectures from ivory tower universities. They are providing much of the learning for free at this point, so the only thing missing is the "marketable degree at a low cost." The "marketable" part is largely a function of the selectivity of the university in question, so I doubt that a low cost degree from a new institution will be highly marketable any time soon. You pretty much need to convince society first that your university is prestigious and selective and the best students all want to go there, a veritable Catch 22.

Isn't it called experience?

Honestly, I think the proliferation of certificates and degrees has had a negative affect on the value of higher education, RE: that "marketable degree" you mentioned. Not to mention that some (myself included) could argue a 2 year tech degree is currently more valuable than any non technical bachelors.

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