By Mark Lieberman, Inside Higher Ed
MOOC provider consulted some but not all partner institutions before introducing fees for online courses. Most institutions support the move, but some wonder if it will be effective. By and large, representatives of institutions said they have a rooting interest in keeping edX financially sustainable, and they aren’t surprised that edX needs more money from students to maintain the volume of its output. Most agreed that more changes from edX and its competitors are likely. Some, such as Rebecca Stein, executive director of the online learning initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks edX might end up rethinking its current approach to support fees. Stein believes edX should either charge students significantly more than $9 — currently the smallest support fee edX plans to levy — or nothing at all. A small support fee might not do enough on its own to improve the company’s finances, she speculates.
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