There’s a revolution in education taking place, many people have told me about the excellent education people can get through online courses, many of them free, some of them from top schools.
It’s a disruptive trend. No, it’s not.
The top schools won’t be disrupted, even most other schools won’t be affected by free online education.
Even if you could sit in on any lecture at any top school, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc, it wouldn’t help you much at all. Students will still be competing to get into those top schools, happy to mortgage their, and their parents’ futures, to pay to get into those top schools.
Because it’s not about the education you get it’s about the contacts you make. It’s about joining a privileged group that takes care of its own throughout the rest of your life. The alumni associations and the other relationships you make are worth far more than the cost or even the quality of the education. It’s not about knowing your subject, it’s about who you know.