<p>My question is, why doesnt harvard give college credit for this course ? It is totally whtihin their ability to do this, and then education would be free for everyone. Am I missing something or is the only reason not to do it based on keeping the socioeconomic barrier in place ?</p>
<p>It costs money to grade progress, administer aid to improve understanding, and to make a massive website, and produce all the content. Reality Check 2012.</p>
<p>Well, because if no one pays for education - then all of those lecturers in that program are out of work. If they are all not getting paid, and are out of work, guess what? - no more lectures - and guess what - no more non-credit video courses designed for enrichment. If Harvard gave away all their courses for free, who would teach the courses, and how would they get paid? And how would the administration get paid?</p>
<p>You’re conflating two different ideas. Education is free for everyone, and has been since the advent of the internet (or more importantly, Wiki and Google). Accreditation is not - and should not be.</p>
<p>They have to pay the professors, they have to pay for the staff, the building, etc etc. Opencourseware is largely a video of a class actually being taught. The interactive classes that are out there are very few, and largely experimental still. It is sort of like getting the test version of software.</p>
<p>The few countries/states that I know of where college education is free were those who used strict examinations to limit entry only to the most elite students or in the case of some US states and some European countries allowed open admission, but instituted harsh weedout policies to flunk out as much as 50%-80% of incoming students by the end of 1-2 years. </p>
<p>We’ve tried the second method in some state public institutions during the 50’s/early '60s. However, it’s no longer considered culturally and socially acceptable.</p>
<p>Some of that is confounded by the fact many students drop-out or leave for a long period for financial reasons. In the '50s/early '60s, such students would not have had as much of an issue because tuition was free.</p>
<p>You don’t get college credit for these classes because they’re enticers, through Harvard Extension, essentially their continuing ed/community ed program. It’s true you can gather enough credits through H Ext to get some degree- but not in these free, non-interactive “courses.” Did you look at the EdX link? Many schools are toying with these freebies right now, testing the waters. No one expects a range of classes to continue to be free.</p>
<p>Are you expecting to work or provide a service for free in your adult life? Perhaps for friends, a few people, or in certain situations, but as a job? For years? If so, how do you plan on paying the bills?</p>
<p>Ditto for Harvard and other institutions.</p>
<p>If you just want the info, glean it on the internet (partially with classes like these) or through journals, experience, etc. If you want more than that, you need to help “pay the bills.”</p>
<p>A motivated person can self-educate, which is more accessible now with the additional resources available through the internet (EdX, MIT OCW, etc.), plus being able to easily search for obscure articles and books and order them much more easily than if you had to go to physical libraries.</p>
<p>But college is also about credentialing, where a reasonably reputable third party certifies that you have learned something to its standards. Grading progress takes more work than simply putting course materials out for self-educating people to use, and colleges also realize that the credential itself is valuable, and price themselves accordingly.</p>
<p>Also, some subjects require more expensive facilities like specialized lab equipment. Others may be difficult to self-study alone, such as music performance as part of a band or orchestra.</p>
<p>Wonder if these podcast-looking non credit classes are required to be produced by some faculty.</p>
<p>As others have said above, there are costs involved in paying staff/ faculty, maintaining the brick/mortar, etc, and Harvard is not a publicly funded institution.</p>
<p>Not always, but ours is thriving! It has certification programs, AA/AS degrees and now has some 4 year programs too. All my D’s have done a lot of classes from there - and that’s where I graduated from too.</p>