The College Education Game Just Got Changed

Arizona State University (ASU) is partnering with the education nonprofit edX to offer students around the world the opportunity to take freshman year courses online — without a required SAT score or high school transcripts.The earned credits enable students to finish their degrees at Arizona’s campus or that of any university campus accepting the courses.

Importantly, students will only pay for classes which they pass and plan to use as college credits.

“For under $6,000, you would have completed a freshman year’s worth of courses. The important thing is you have to pay for credit only if you want to and only if you pass the course,” edX CEO Anant Agarwal told business education web site Poets & Quants.

“The model makes freshman year relatively risk free and significantly less expensive than the typical first year of study on a college campus,” the site said.

Courses featured in the initial offering include math, humanities, arts and design, social-behavioral sciences, and natural sciences.

Read more here.