Free MIT Education - We All Benefit From This Educational Philanthropy

I always wanted to go to MIT, and now I can! Hats off to MIT and the other 120 universities that have joined the OpenCourseWare movement.

Free MIT Education Just A Click Away, OpenCourseWare Offers Online 'Intellectual Philanthropy' From More Than 100 Universities - CBS News:

"By the end of this year, the contents of all 1,800 courses taught at one of the world's most prestigious universities will be available online to anyone in the world, anywhere in the world. Learners won't have to register for the classes, and everyone is accepted.

The cost? It's all free of charge.

The OpenCourseWare movement, begun at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002 and now spread to some 120 other universities worldwide, aims to disperse knowledge far beyond the ivy-clad walls of elite campuses to anyone who has an Internet connection and a desire to learn."

I browsed through the MIT offerings and am amazed at the content already available -- whole courses from the syllabus to videos of the lectures and all the assignments. With a little self-discipline one could master a whole new field. As they note, though, some of the good stuff, like class discussions and feedback on assignments -- is missing.

But if you have a student bored with classes and ready for some bigger challenges, what could be better than a course from MIT. (And don't say Harvard...)

Photo by Adam Solomon