Free Yale Education -- Ok a little exaggeration here, but....

Parents Forum
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<p>Methinks that Yale is thinking ahead to the end of the echo boom, and is trying hard to get their name out even more internationally. My guess is that this is part of the first wave of the creative college marketing strategies that we can expect to see. After all, as of about 2011, the echo boom will be finished with college, and the glut of applicants is expected to end.</p>

<p>"BOSTON - Yale University said on Wednesday it will offer digital videos of some courses on the Internet for free, along with transcripts in several languages, in an effort to make the elite private school more accessible.</p>

<p>While Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others already offer course material online without charge, Yale is the first to focus on free video lectures, the New Haven, Conn.-based school said.</p>

<p>The 18-month pilot project will provide videos, syllabi and transcripts for seven courses beginning in the 2007 academic year. They include “Introduction to the Old Testament,” “Fundamentals of Physics” and “Introduction to Political Philosophy.”"</p>

<p><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12591416/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12591416/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Cornell has offered lectures through Cybertower for a number of years. The lecture series on Joyce's Ulyssees was particularly fascinating and helpful for me as I plowed through the novel for a second time.</p>

<p>I have also availed myself to Princeton's on line lectures, finding the one by print artist Chuck Close wasparticularly good.</p>

<p>And of course any techno-nerd worth his salt has downloaded Richard Feynman's Caltech frosh physics lectures.</p>

3

<p>Yes, MIT's online courses have been available through OpenCourseWare (OCW) for years and are an invaluable resource. Many of MIT's OCW offerings are video lectures, though, so I'm not sure why Yale is trying to co-opt that genre. I'm very glad to hear other universities are following suit, this is a Good Thing.</p>