Coursera's "new economic model"

[Kal Di]

I like the idea of Coursera, a centralized marketplace for online degrees, but here's what I don't get: with the profit sharing model, the school develops their online program and then markets it through Coursera and Coursera then gets a piece of the action. If said school were to just host the program themselves, they get 100% of the action. Other than being a centralized marketplace, what is Coursera providing to the schools to justify giving up that percentage? If the Covid pandemic taught schools anything, it's that it isn't that difficult to transition from tradition B&M to online formats. Sure there were blocks in the path, and plenty of learning lessons, but they've all experienced that it can be done.

It is easier for those universities to share the revenue with Coursera because Coursera has a very specific audience (i.e. online learners). Surely, universities could make their transition on their own, but they would probably waste a lot of money in poorly optimized online ads to acquire customers.