Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been hampered
by low completion rates and the fact that no credit is being offered. Steven Klinsky, founder of
the private equity firm New Mountain Capital, believes he has a better plan.
Klinsky recently launched the Freshman Year for Free initiative,
which will offer a full range of freshman-level courses to anyone for free
online. These courses, unlike MOOCs, will prepare students to take exams that can
earn college credit. The courses could potentially allow students to earn
enough credits to skip their freshman year.
“It’s not meant to attack the traditional system,”
Klinsky said in an article in Wired. “What we’re trying to do is have an on-ramp that helps you with the
initial costs.”
Klinsky has already donated $1 million to the MOOC platform
edX to develop courses for the Freshman Year for Free program. The funding will
help edX create 20 test-prep courses that will be available though a portal from
the Modern States Education Alliance, a nonprofit organization founded by
Klinsky.
“There’s a clear need for wider universal access to postsecondary
education, and a lot of people are thinking about how to solve it,” he said.
“The revolution started totally separate from us. We’re just trying to make it
useful for people.”
