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Ive always said education should be free, as long as you can maintain a good grade point average and be taking classes that lead to a specific degree.

FREE? Are you f##king nuts? Who pays for the physical plant, the teacher's salaries, the course materials, etc.?

This article is about universities going to the accreditation business and learning online. Still, he admits that

Wadhwa allows that there will always be students able and willing to pay for a traditional college experience and for them it will be a worthwhile investment. But for the vast majority, from a financial standpoint that kind of education makes no sense and is fast becoming unnecessary. He believes the higher education revolution is coming soon and will happen fast—perhaps fast enough to keep the next generation from finishing school with debts they may never be able to pay.

There are over 900,000 foreign students attending US colleges. Why? Because they pay full tuition costs--some even supplemented by the USG.

FREE? Are you f##king nuts? Who pays for the physical plant, the teacher's salaries, the course materials, etc.?

For an online course?

Physical plant: (Internet, already there), Setup for teacher in his own house, $10,000 for PC, camera, mic, extras like whiteboards, etc.

Teacehrs' salaries?: Varies, for adults, possibly their employers, like they already do for those two day seminars that cost $300 or so. For students, maybe Swiffer and Geico, maybe PBS type funding with telethons. Maybe the teacher donates the time to get notereity for his newest economics masterpiece or novel. The possibilities are endless.

The course materials? For English literature, Google and Project Gutenburg. For anything written before 1924, Google. For specialty software, much of it will be public domain/GNU open source (e.g. TeX). Those who want to buy better software are free to do so.

Not every school will follow this type of model, but it only takes a handful of BIG ones to drive the cost down down down.