I wasn't talking about the format so much as e.g. the rate at which college tuition has risen relative to inflation, and the consequent bloat at universities.
Thank you for this clarification. It's hard for me to wrap my head around focusing the latter without focusing on the former. I tend to think bloat will be taken care of through economic pressures. That is, tuition will reach a point where students demand a removal of the bloat. However, at places like community colleges there isn't much bloat.
I do agree that there is room for some disruption but I don't see there being room enough for someone to reach Paypal size. But I'm biased. My own ideas for disruption have not panned out and this possibly clouds my judgment.
EDIT: One thing for people to consider is that Google has mostly made access to knowledge and information free. They haven't mastered how to make learning mostly free but they nailed the information part. As far as I can tell Coursera is Google light plus letting people the pace and sequence of topics. Indeed, isn't this, from an information point of view, essentially what school is? Can the learning part be done with far fewer people (fewer teachers)? I don't know.
Is Coursera really creating content or are they being subsidize via either already created content or by the universities that support the professors making the content?
Tailoring the class into 2-5 minute videos and designing interactive questions and programming tasks should count as creation of new content in my opinion.
Besides, when a professor writes a book, based on a lecture they are paid to give, the university does not get a share from the royalties either, as far as I know.
I'm not sure how much of an effect a startup can have in this area, though.
This is much more a political and social issue than technological. Startups like Khan Academy can certainly change the way that people are taught and how they learn, but they aren't equipped to change tuition costs.
If you really want to change that, start a PAC and start pressuring elected officials. That's where change will happen.
We have private colleges and universities. They are in competition with each other. Market forces should already be in place, driving efficiency and driving down the cost of a college degree.
IMO, the elephant in the room is credentialing. Khan Academy needs accreditation similar to (or identical to) that conferred upon universities. Alternatively, it needs to sponsor or build competency and credentialing standards. Students who earn these credentials, or demonstrate these competencies, can prove themselves to be "college educated" in a given topic.
College is still considered necessary, and often irreplaceable, because many job markets demand it. They need to see some sort of accepted credential on an applicant's resume. If we move away from credentials, and toward demonstrated skills and competencies, we can remove the stigma that the job market still associates with self-teaching and internet learning.
We all know that a credential on a resume is no guarantee that the credential holder is competent. So the side benefit of a move from credentials to competencies would be the burden of proof. People able to prove their competencies would not necessarily need credentials, and people hiding behind credentials would be forced to prove themselves competent.
Maybe the competency proof is the secret sauce for a higher-education disrupting change.
I wonder if the angle to attack this is already starting to show-up, with things like HackerSchool or the LivingSocial-created Hungry Academy training program . . . essentially, those are somewhat grass-roots efforts that could circumvent the default credential process.
Heck, maybe a staffing company could provide employees on a trial basis with some type of satisfaction-guaranteed offer.
