After a For-Profit Company Bought EdX -- What Happens Next? (edsurge.com) 40
jyosim summarizes an article at EdSurge: edX, founded by Harvard University and MIT a decade ago as a nonprofit alternative to for-profit online education providers, has agreed [in June] to sell its operations to a for-profit company, 2U. Exactly what that means is only now becoming clear, but many observers have noted that in the end, 2U bought a giant source of leads for students that it can upsell graduate degrees to from its partner colleges. But turning edX into a marketing vehicle is a far cry from the high-minded language used when the nonprofit was founded to bring education to underserved students around the world.
In the article edX CEO and co-founder Anant Agarwal acknowledges there were tough questions after the initial announcement: But he says that the vast majority of college presidents, provosts and professors he's spoken with have been reassured by the details of the arrangement. He listed those details: that 2U has committed to continue the key mission of edX, including continuing to offer free versions of courses; that the sale price of $800 million will all go to a new nonprofit entity that will advance equity in education; that "not a single penny of the $800 million will [go] to either me or MIT or Harvard or the employees"; and that the open-source platform that edX courses run on, Open Edx, will be maintained by the new nonprofit rather than by 2U.
But there are many critics of the deal. And the positive message of Agarwal and 2U CEO and co-founder Chip Paucek doesn't square with some vocal protests of the arrangement. A dean of digital learning at MIT, Krishna Rajagopal, resigned in protest, telling colleagues in an email that he had "serious continuing reservations" about the proposed direction.
IBL News reported this week that 2U CEO Paucek "asked edX partners to give his company a shot." "All we need is an opportunity to prove that the future of edX will grow; the brand will grow," he said during an interview with EdSurge.com... "You will see us begin to advertise edX outright and grow the learner base. And I think that'll be good for everybody."
Paucek also mentioned plans to incorporate into edX's courses a 2U job placement tool (developed by a coding bootcamp 2U acquired) which charges businesses to reach prospective employees.
In the article edX CEO and co-founder Anant Agarwal acknowledges there were tough questions after the initial announcement: But he says that the vast majority of college presidents, provosts and professors he's spoken with have been reassured by the details of the arrangement. He listed those details: that 2U has committed to continue the key mission of edX, including continuing to offer free versions of courses; that the sale price of $800 million will all go to a new nonprofit entity that will advance equity in education; that "not a single penny of the $800 million will [go] to either me or MIT or Harvard or the employees"; and that the open-source platform that edX courses run on, Open Edx, will be maintained by the new nonprofit rather than by 2U.
But there are many critics of the deal. And the positive message of Agarwal and 2U CEO and co-founder Chip Paucek doesn't square with some vocal protests of the arrangement. A dean of digital learning at MIT, Krishna Rajagopal, resigned in protest, telling colleagues in an email that he had "serious continuing reservations" about the proposed direction.
IBL News reported this week that 2U CEO Paucek "asked edX partners to give his company a shot." "All we need is an opportunity to prove that the future of edX will grow; the brand will grow," he said during an interview with EdSurge.com... "You will see us begin to advertise edX outright and grow the learner base. And I think that'll be good for everybody."
Paucek also mentioned plans to incorporate into edX's courses a 2U job placement tool (developed by a coding bootcamp 2U acquired) which charges businesses to reach prospective employees.
Answer: (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nothing good.
What did they think was going to happen? Its not like either of the founding entities needed the money. MIT doesn't, and Harvard doesn't either.
Money makes the education go round. (Score:4, Insightful)
edX, founded by Harvard University and MIT a decade ago as a nonprofit alternative to for-profit online education providers, has agreed [in June] to sell its operations to a for-profit company, 2U.
Have people finally realized it takes money to make things happen in this world?
Re: Money makes the education go round. (Score:1)
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That stuff brings in money, prestige, and other things that help the college and education.
I understand the reason behind that and I don't enjoy sports at all.
Your answer is similar with "how are we building roads with tax dollars when the FDA needs funding"
Re: Harvard and MIT are immensely wealthy (Score:2)
Harvard and MIT can afford support without batting an eye, but this is a way to make a profit from a program obviously no longer wanted.
Divest for profit then walk away.
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I don't know offhand about MIT's endowment, but for Harvard the endowment’s value is currently $50.2 billion [harvard.edu], and it received $1.4 billion in donations last year, which is typical now for Harvard. No amount of money is ever enough.
Re: Money makes the education go round. (Score:2)
Why the f would you word a nonprofits rules so that they can sell/give the operation toa for-profit though and if you have worded them how/why would you give money to them, to just benefit in the end some for profit company of their choosing? I mean thats the money part, sure it takes money to run education or anything but its not like a nonprofit has nonprofit status for no reason, its exactly to get money under different rules to a forprofit to run the operation.
How does that even work legally? Why not ju
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But the financial models can be aligned with the interests of both sides. This does not seem to be one of those models. For profit schools tend to the scammy side.
The financial model I would have liked to see for EdX would have basically been free education with paid accreditation. At the point where you need official accreditation, you are presumably going to use the education for something official, like getting a paid job, so you would pay extra for the properly proctored testing, with the extra money go
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Harvard University and MIT both have endowments sufficient to fund their needs indefinitely. If they no longer wish to fund this experiment in the future of education, they should just shut it down.
Selling it off to a for-profit education marketeer and funneling the money into a new non-profit entity with a yet-to-be-defined charter and unreliable oversight appears shady.
It is an ethical tautology: If what you are doing appears shady, it is not ethical. The question itself is proof of the failure.
story of big loans for people who go there schools (Score:2)
story of big loans for people who go there schools
EdX... Get your diploma (Score:1)
absolutely, positively overnight
Honest (Score:5, Funny)
Honest guys, we're totes not making any money on any of this. It's all going to stay free and we're not going to even abuse the information for anything! Honest! We just spent almost a billion dollars to not make any money at all!
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Re: Honest (Score:2)
Re: Honest (Score:2)
What happens with the money though? How do you sell a nonprofit anyway?
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They'll probably have all the CRM data for MOOC participants as well as 'partner institutions' whose MOOCs were hosted on the platform. That's a lot of leads to try to turn into sales, i.e. sell partner institutions' courses & programmes to would be students &/or up-sell free MOOC courses into actual paying university or college enrollments. There's a lot of deals in a lot of directions to be made.
BTW, if you're interested in a decent quality MOOC platform with some A-list partner educational instit
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I have no idea whether they bought any of the servers it ran on, but that's not really important. They bought the content. The software itself is open source, and apparently will be maintained by an independent organization.
Non-profit? (Score:5, Interesting)
So how does it work in America? One can start a "non-profit", enjoy the tax benefit and goodwill of customers/users, then turn around and *sell* the whole thing to a for-profit company, leaving all users to be harvested for money by the new owner?
Sounded more like "non-profit for now, sell for profit later" scam to me.
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Re:As non-profit, who does sales money go to? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the OP:
"that the sale price of $800 million will all go to a new nonprofit entity that will advance equity in education"
So the real question is, what is the name of that entity and what are they doing with that money.
Honestly, it's totally fine that the guys that payed $800 million for it can end up doing more or less what they want with it.
What matters is what's happening to the money now. All the focus is on the people that bought the thing. Whereas it should be all on the money and where it is and what they're doing with it now.
And I can't find ANY information about that.
$800 million shouldn't just disappear.
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Really. I wonder whose equity they're going to advance, using education as a vehicle?
IMHO it helps to remember that non-profits and Foundations are often vehicles for legalized money-laundering. See also: political campaigns.
Non-Profits (Score:2)
Non-profit just means an organization doesn't make money for other people. The people who work for the non-profit can make plenty of money. The courts kinda-sorta cracked down on that a few years ago, but there are still plenty of non-profits where the directors can make high six-figures, or well into seven figures. The director of the NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art makes $3 million a year.
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... but there are still plenty of non-profits where the directors can make high six-figures, or well into seven figures...
Cough, cough, Wikipedia, cough.
Actually they may not have single positions with such high salaries, but the vast majority of the money donated to them over the years has not gone to keeping Wikipedia operating (they used to boast how little it actually cost to operate) but into opaque programs of no discernible concrete purpose, value or result. Jimmy Wales does innovative charity engineering also, finding ways of getting high ratings from charity ranking organizations while the money disappears into the po
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So how does it work in America? One can start a "non-profit", enjoy the tax benefit and goodwill of customers/users, then turn around and *sell* the whole thing to a for-profit company, leaving all users to be harvested for money by the new owner?
Sounded more like "non-profit for now, sell for profit later" scam to me.
Indeed. Sounds exceptionally immoral to me.
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the sale price of $800 million will all go to a new nonprofit entity that will advance equity in education; that "not a single penny of the $800 million will [go] to either me or MIT or Harvard or the employees
No, you can't do that. The proceeds have to be given to a similar non-profit or charity or something.
EdX slogan (Score:2, Funny)
Erectile Dysfunction Express -- When your ED absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.
Wrong language from the start (Score:3)
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After you sell, you are no longer IN CHARGE (Score:2)
Really? Arguments donâ(TM)t âoesquare&# (Score:2)
Re: Really? Arguments do not quote square quote? (Score:2)
I dunno about you guys... (Score:1)
Well, there's still Khan Academy, which has pretty much the best teacher of all time giving away courses for free.
The "Non-Profit" claim was bogus? (Score:2)
Selling, and therefore, earning a profit, out of your supposed Non-Profit project don't seem legit.
How is this even permitted, if they had solicited donations in the past under such language?
EdX Inc. is a nonprofit, tax-exempt entity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. All donations collected are classified as unrestricted gifts ...