Harvard & MIT To Put Classes Online For Free

Have you always wanted to go to Harvard or MIT but were too dumb or too poor — or both — to get in? Well as Dean Wormer said in Animal House, “fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.” But fear not — you’ll soon be able to get that sort of fancy world-class education on the internet for free!

Reports the Atlantic via Mashable:

This morning two of the top universities announced a collaboration that signals they are taking the latter path: MIT and Harvard are each pouring $30 million into a nonprofit partnership edX, which they hope will make the top-notch faculties and courses of their schools available for free to millions of people around the world — free for anyone with an Internet connection.

Though the online platform will have a second-fiddle status compared with the on-campus experience (online students will be able to attain certificates of mastery but not traditional degrees), the effort reveals a public-minded spirit that animates both schools. At the core of this program is a belief that the excellence of the education available at MIT and Harvard should be available — in an online format — to anyone who has the commitment and desire to make it through an online course.

With that said, allow Dean Wormer to explain why actually going to college can be sort of fun: “Who dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween, the trees are filled with underwear. Every spring, the toilets explode.”

Let’s just all take the rest of the day off and watch Animal House, shall we?

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