Online degrees are nothing new. Since the late 1990’s, a steady stream of online degree programs have entered the market, including many reputable options from top-tier schools.
But in recent years a new type of online degree has emerged, born of partnerships between elite universities and the platforms that support MOOCs, such as Coursera, FutureLearn, and edX.
The first of these new MOOC degree programs emerged at Georgia Tech, which partnered with Udacity in 2013 to create a low-cost online master’s program in computer science. Two years later, the University of Illinois and Coursera started a master’s program in business that it called an iMBA. Since then, more and more degrees have run through MOOC channels.
