Who Is Funding MOOCS?

Forces disrupting education are gaining momentum. This is made visible by the increased investment in innovations outside the mainstream educational institutions. This will feed the demand for more education services supplied by businesses that although they did not exist only a few years ago they have a huge impact on the way education is delivered around the world.

In an interesting diagram published by The Chronicle of Higher Education four players are placed at the centre of the MOOC universe: Coursera, Udacity, edX and Khan Academy. The latter is a little bit of an odd addition to the group, but nevertheless it is an innovator with huge impact.

What seems to be contributing to the fast ascendance to power and influence of these organisations is the network effect supported by the participation of three types of investors: venture capitalists, large non-profit educational institutions and elite American universities such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford and University of Pennsylvania.

It is important to note that MOOCs are not pure technology companies. There are no IBMs or Microsoft or Google in the mix, and this is a good thing, because this allows enterprising educators to create something that has design elements organically crafted with educational DNA.