HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Meet the New, Self-Appointed MOOC Accreditors: Google and Instagram. “Nineteen colleges now work with Coursera to offer what amount to microdegrees—it calls them Course Specializations—that require students to take a series of short MOOCs and then finish a hands-on capstone project. The serialization approach has proved an effective way to bring in revenue to support the free courses—to get a certificate proving they passed the courses, students each end up paying around $500 in fees. By helping develop MOOC-certificate programs, companies are giving a seal of approval to those new credentials that may be more important to some students than whether an accredited university or a well-trained professor is involved.”

Plus: “The strategy has already worked well for Udacity, says its founder, Sebastian Thrun. Udacity has decided not to involve universities at all, and works only with industry to develop its courses and nanodegrees. ‘We’re discovering that there are a huge number of willing and eager lifelong learners that are underserved’ by higher education, he says. ‘We’re getting to the point where we’ll be profitable as a company.'”

There are a lot of people — including currently enrolled students — who are underserved by higher education. I think that accreditors should compete with one another based on value to students and employers.