Written by John Regan, former Director of Sales, for equity research

Question: I’ve heard of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Will these help me after graduation?

Answer:  With millions of students enrolling in MOOCs every year, your question has an international audience. Online college courses are transforming higher education, but a MOOC is openly available, usually for free. With no incentive to complete the course, are students learning and benefitting from this?

One of the wonderful things about the internet is the lowering of prices for many commodities, education included. Many schools, colleges and universities offer online courses, certificates, diplomas and degrees, and quite a few of them can be taken at no cost.

The MOOC as we know it today was originally offered by Edx and Coursera who amalgamated all of the free courses offered by the world’s leading universities. It was seen as a revolution in providing access to higher education to disadvantaged populations that otherwise could not afford it. In reality, things did not work out this way and the result was not the philanthropic vision of its creators. Studies showed that 80% of MOOC participants already had a degree, 60% of them were in full-time employment, and 60% came from first-world countries, not developing ones.

Another statistic was the majority of those that start a MOOC do not complete it, so are there really any benefits? Going back to the survey figures it seems that there are: 72% of participants reported their careers improved and 61% claimed their education did.

Reasons for taking MOOCs vary but over 50% of students on them say that they would like to improve their career or find a new job. Almost 90% of these claim to have been successful in either securing a new job, getting a pay rise, improving employability, starting a new business or enhancing job skills. Almost a third took a MOOC to improve their education or achieve academic goals.

In addition to the benefits they can have on your career or employment prospects, MOOCs can also be used to gain extra college credits. Organizations such as Edx have partnered with universities to create academies offering freshman level courses for credits. These however are not free, but the cost compared to a full-year studying on campus is negligible.

Arizona State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, and Rochester Institute of Technology all offer credit-worthy MOOCs in a wide range of subjects via online platforms such as Edx.

Many of these credits are also transferable so you can change colleges without losing them. An additional advantage is that there is no protracted application and admissions process and previous grades and education are often not taken into account. For students earning online degrees, nursing and healthcare administration consistently rank in the ten most popular choices.

Newer MOOC providers are coming on to the scene such as FutureLearn who have announced six post graduate degrees from Deakin University in Australia. So it is now possible to complete your entire degree online. Any additional certificates are going to look good on your resume, they show commitment and a willingness to learn, two qualities that employers want to see.

If you continue training the same way you’ve always trained, don’t expect to get better results… Jim Crapko.