[UMATURLIN]

Textbooks would be open-source PDFs, so no problem there. Grading would be mostly by computer (ie, automatic) with written exams/essays graded by TAs in the appropriate country. Labs would of course be difficult, but a lot of that could be done on the internet I suspect, with the respective countries providing what they can for a lab course (or donated).

Tuition would be minimal, as costs would be minimal The respective countries could set a minimal tuition to cover the TAs (that they are providing).

Professors would be paid for via grants, there are plenty of those for this sort of thing, and through various programs.

I don't think it would be that hard - or if it even doesn't exist in some form already. The difficulty is getting people to the college level, and getting people to *want* to get to the college level (or, to be able to remove themselves from the workforce for a period of time, either entirely or partially). That's probably a much higher hurdle... look at the resistance One Laptop Per Child met, after all.

[Cvo1iRT0]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Tuition would be minimal, as costs would be minimal The respective countries could set a minimal tuition to cover the TAs (that they are providing). The Peace Corp could serve as another source for TAs.

..and after further thought, we don't really need buildings, lecture halls, etc. Those are just for the convenience of the old-fashioned professors, but here, they're teaching over the internet. All the student would need is a computer hooked to the internet.

I like the idea of using grants. And didn't Bill Gates just donate a b'zillion dollars to a charitable foundation? I'll bet a Bill Gates foundation would like to fund a PanWorld Internet University which uses lots of computers.

[isopsmypovA]

hey, we barely survived the coulomb catastrophe as it was.

There are too many problems with this for it to work.

[Blolover11]

Knowledge is not enough, you need proof. Who would you choose to spend resources on (interview), a guy with a degree from MIT or someone with a printout of grades from some online university?

It's a great idea for helping people to learn more, much like Wikipedia, but it won't be good enough for the market.

[Wymdqcvb]

Originally posted by Eli
Knowledge is not enough, you need proof. Who would you choose to spend resources on (interview), a guy with a degree from MIT or someone with a printout of grades from some online university? On the other hand, how many applicant from MIT will there be in Ecuador, the Philippines, and Niger.

[Alliopeti]

That's exactly what I was remembering. Thanx, Snoop.

[Reocourgigiot]

You couldn;t teach any of the hard sciences though; you really do need well equipped labs to do anything in chemistry, physics or biology.

[Qncvqpgfg]

It wouldn't be a good education in biology or physics, but you can't train people do do chemistry or molecular biology without labs. If there are no labs, then why teach chemistry? Might as well just give them on the job training and not bother with the degree because a chemistry degree without labs is worthless. Barely a soft science then.

[Nurba]

I think snoopy369 hit the nail on the head:

The difficulty is getting people to the college level, and getting people to *want* to get to the college level (or, to be able to remove themselves from the workforce for a period of time, either entirely or partially).

For these schemes to work the target culture has to be receptive to learning and ready to spend a lot of time doing it. That means a very disciplined and long-term oriented population. Like Taiwanese and such. Most countries struggling with poverty are very short-term oriented.

[geaveheadeNox]

Originally posted by snoopy369


Look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1

That's probably what you're talking about. It turned out to be $200, and doesn't use a satellite (though you can of course set up a connection for a classroom and 802.11g it). Still, $200 is a rather large amount of money for a third world citizen... It's also facing huge competition from intel and microsoft, who are afraid that these AMD, Linux machines will threaten them as international standards.