Stephen Downes

Colleges and universities have long counted on their monopoly over the granting of degrees to cement their economic position. After all, people would say, students need degrees in order to get a job. But this reliance may now be backfiring. What do they respond to this: ""The MIT certificate has a lot more value in the marketplace than three course credits at MassBay—absolutely," says Chandrakant Panse, a professor of microbiology at MassBay. But if this is the case, one wonders what it is MassBay students are paying for when they pay tuition.