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Elite Colleges Started EdX as a Nonprofit Alternative to Coursera. How Is It Doing?

Edsurge

Amidst the hype, two competing entities were formed within a few weeks of each other: One of them was Coursera, a for-profit startup backed by the biggest-name investors in Silicon Valley, who argued that they were building a billion-dollar company, a rare “unicorn,” as venture capitalists say.

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Could Coursera Become as Prestigious as Harvard? This Expert Thinks So.

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And that means that just because different students are offered the same access to a certain kind of experience, such as, say, an online format they may not be ready for, that won’t necessarily lead to fair outcomes, he adds. Major online-learning platforms, including Coursera, are pushing colleges to offer more online degrees these days.

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Harvard and MIT Launch Nonprofit to Increase College Access

Edsurge

He also pointed out that many existing nonprofits and philanthropic organizations already aim to improve college completion rates and open college access, leaving him to ask, “What’s unique about these guys?” While MIT and Harvard set up edX as a nonprofit, two Stanford professors started a venture-backed for-profit called Coursera.

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Coursera Raises $130 Million as Colleges Turn to Online Courses for the Fall

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Coursera, which provides online courses to higher-ed institutions, businesses and government agencies, has raised $130 million in a Series F round led by NEA. To date, Coursera has raised $464 million, according to CEO Jeff Maggioncalda. Coursera for Campus launched last October. Coursera currently has around 600 employees.

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Will the Pandemic Lead More Colleges to Offer Credit for MOOCs? Coursera is Pushing for It.

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When two Stanford University professors started Coursera in 2012, the focus was on building free online courses to bring teaching from elite colleges out to the world. So Coursera sees a new business opportunity: to sell the courses it developed to colleges that want to use them as part of for-credit courses for their own students.

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MOOC Pioneer Coursera Tries a New Push: Selling Courseware to Colleges

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Coursera started with a mission to give the general public free access to courses from expensive colleges. But in a new effort announced Thursday, called Coursera for Campus, the company will begin selling access to its complete library of courseware to any college to use, at around $400 per student.

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Coursera Couple Returns to Higher Ed With $14.5M to Recreate In-Person Learning, Online

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Avida is the husband of Coursera co-founder Daphne Koller, and one of the first board members of the company that helped put the spotlight on massive online open courses, or MOOCs. The couple is no longer with Coursera, which is now valued at $2.5 But they are not done with higher education yet.

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