The Economic Crisis and the Rise of MOOCs

When the major MOOC platforms were established in 2012, the economy and higher education were in crisis as a result of the 2008 financial collapse. Also, due to the long-term shift from industrial to information society, the nature of work, the skill base and organization of the labor force, and the production and utilization of knowledge were all changing. Middle-class jobs were disappearing and middle-class wages were no better than stagnant, while college tuition and student debt skyrocketed. Students found themselves paying more in tuition for fewer benefits in expected pay-offs. Thus, starting in 2011 American college enrollments began to decline, and some colleges were driven to insolvency. MOOCs gained rapid visibility by promising to resolve the high education crisis by making free, ‘world class’ higher education available for all.