Danielle Levy

In the last few weeks many universities, including some elite institutions, have signed up with Coursera, a venture offering free classes online. So much so that “there’s panic” said Kevin Carey, director of education policy at the New America Foundation, “whether it’s senseless panic is unclear.” MOOCS or massive open online courses let colleges reach big student pools at relatively low cost. Many wonder whether in future students will be willing to pay from $20,000 to $60,000 a year for a traditional campus experience. For now most of the students come from foreign countries and the free courses do not offer credits towards a degree. Some believe it is only a matter of time before they do, and worry what will that mean to universities’ budgets when that happens in some cases even trying to come up with ways to make the venture profitable. Free, or nearly free, online courses appear to be a way to make higher education affordable and available to all. Yet it seems that we are lamenting the lack of a business model instead of lamenting the many consequences of high current tuition costs.

British historian Ian Mortimer usually writes about history as if he were a time traveler. In his latest, The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England, he explains the sights, sounds and smells one would be exposed to were we to be transported back to that time. All in all it was he says a dangerous and brutal time, a time of “death, disease, suffering and incredible violence…half the population didn’t live past the age of 21.” He goes on to describe such realities of daily life as the lack of dental care and the prevalence of rape. Aside from its historical significance, it may be a book that prompts us to rethink some of our assumptions about the present, that we are not progressing, for instance. We may have many problems, but we are, for example, safer than in Medieval times—unless one lives in a war zone, of course. We can’t always see progress, and yet when we look back a few centuries, we can see that however slowly and however many detours it takes, it does occur. And certainly occurs whether we are aware of it or not.

Sir Richard Branson, the well known British entrepreneur is always on the lookout for new business opportunities. This time it’s climate change. To him we’re not taking it seriously enough and won’t until companies find ways to profit from it. He believes solving global warming and other climate issues requires brains and creativity to develop not only the required technology but also the required business models to make solving those problems profitable. I usually have difficulty with the idea of for profit public services. For profit prisons or public safety services like police or fire, even trash removal in my view pose more questions than they solve. But there’s always an exception. If a profit motive is what it will take to solve climate change, then why not!