Dive Brief:
- Some Texas academics are rethinking investments by their state’s higher education institutions in massive open online courses.
- The University of Texas System invested $5 million in edX MOOCs two years ago, then $1.5 million in edX at UT-Austin and $250,000 at UT-Arlington. Rice University and the University of Houston System are offering MOOCs through Coursera, and Rice through edX also, the Texas Tribune reported.
- University of Texas officials said this week that they’re not going to pay for further MOOC development, though they’re still encouraging their schools to experiment with MOOCs and release more edX courses.
Dive Insight:
Among the less-encouraging results of the investments, UT-Austin’s first MOOCs had completion rates of 1% to 13%. Also, less than a third of the students in the school’s most popular MOOC, Energy 101, were from the U.S. And at least 60% of the students had already earned a bachelor’s degree.