ASU’s for-credit MOOC experiment with edX didn’t meet expectations for completion or certification. The university has quietly moved in a new direction.
Arizona State University’s Global Freshman Academy was supposed to open up undergraduate education to thousands of students, but it never quite lived up to the hype.
Hundreds of thousands of students enrolled in the academy’s free online courses, but four years later, only a fraction have completed a course, and just a minuscule number paid to receive college credit for their efforts.
Of 373,000 people who enrolled, only 8,090 completed a course with a grade of C or better, just over 2 percent of all students enrolled. Around 1,750 students (0.47 percent) paid to receive college credit for completing a course, and fewer than 150 students (0.028 percent) went on to pursue a full degree at ASU.
When ASU launched the academy in partnership with edX in 2015, it caused a stir. The idea of offering a MOOC-powered degree program was novel, and critics suggested ASU might cannibalize its own student pipeline by offering for-credit courses at a fraction of the cost of its existing online degrees. There were also concerns about quality and fears that traditional face-to-face education might be replaced by cheaper online options.