What my free online education taught me

By Jonathan Blum, TheStreet Staff. Expect the $475 billion market for higher ed to be cut in half by the rise of no-cost online college courses. It's almost June. Time for dads and grads, and enumerating the living from the dead in the collapsing U.S. market for higher education. Because if my month of learning collegiate-level data science via Coursera -- a Mountain View Calif., provider no-cost online courses -- is any indication, it's time for parents, educators, employers, students and investors (not to mention college real estate speculators) to learn how ugly it's going to get for institutions charging a lot to learn a lot. Investors are already familiar with the course syllabus: Just like in the music, financial services and corporate IT sectors, it's absolutely, positively possible to get high-quality, first-rate content (in this case, a job-fetching college education) for nothing. Read more...