Fee payments lift MOOC completion rates

Students in massive open online courses (MOOC) who pay a modest amount for a "verified certificate" are just as likely finish their course as regular university students, according to a new large-scale study of online education.

The study, from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which jointly founded the leading MOOC provider edX, found those students who paid the usually less-than $US100 ($130) fee for a certificate, had a 59 per cent course completion rate, the same as the overall graduation rate for students enrolling in bachelor's degrees in the United States.