Massive Online Education Gets Less Massive

The recording of a statistics course in a studio at Udacity's location in Mountain View, Calif., on March 6, 2013. Universities have begun to blend massive open online courses, or MOOCs, into their curriculum in an attempt to accommodate the large amount of undergraduates needing remedial work and to remedy the budget-induced reduction of seats available in classes. Photographer: Jim Wilson/The New York Times via Redux

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By Ari Levy

January 14, 2014 at 11:30 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

The Web education phenomenon has hit a rough patch of late. After massive open online courses, or MOOCs as they're awkwardly called, lured tens of millions of dollars in venture funding and millions of users over the past two years, the dream of bringing a quality virtual education to anyone, anywhere isn't quite working out as planned.

Even Sebastian Thrun, the online education pioneer and founder of Udacity, told Fast Company in November that he's helped develop a "lousy product" because so few students finish the digital courses.