Online MBA Program Created from MOOCs for Free

Laurie Pickard is currently a rural enterprise development and entrepreneurship specialist at USAID based in Rwanda. Her aim is to study for an online MBA using material that has been put online by some of the world’s top business schools for free in the form of massive open online courses (MOOCs).

MOOCs, regarded with derision in their early days, are now considered good ways for anyone to learn new skills outside of university or grad school. In the last few years, top schools such as Yale, Harvard and Wharton have begun to offer selections of introductory courses, run by distinguished faculty members, for free in an effort to make educational materials available to anyone who wishes to learn. The rise of the MOOC has been chartered by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and their findings show that the schools offering free online business courses has doubled in less than a year (during a nine month period in 2012) and the number of MOOCs offering established business faculty has also doubled in the same timeframe.

Although MOOCs rarely provide course credit, often those who complete the course will receive a certificate outlining their new skills, and, as these networks grow, the MOOC’s position as a legitimate learning platform is solidifying.

Pickard will be the first to ever attempt to gain a free MBA

Pickard, aged 32, plans to earn her online MBA within three years, for less than US$1,000, while continuing her full-time job at USAID. Having been initially interested in the high-end, expensive MBA courses available in the US (which can often cost in the region of US$100,000), Pickard went on to review the European courses which were shorter and often a quarter of the price of the US ones. Eventually, after a friend enrolled on a free finance course or Coursera, Pickard realized that creating her own online MBA for free was an option.

The No Pay MBA website is Pickard’s creation which she is using to get other people involved in the idea of an (almost) free MBA. The blog shows all the courses she has enrolled in for her online MBA, already completed and those she will enroll in at a later date. So far over five others have followed in Pickard’s free MBA concept. An outline of Pickard’s tailor-made first semester in available on the site and shows just how serious she is about completing her self-made free MBA. Based on the three areas generally studied on the standard MBA curriculum, Pickard’s first semester tackles the topics of management, leadership, business ethics, finance and accounting.

Pickard is now four months into her free MBA and has completed five online courses. But MOOCs are not for everyone it seems, and a study from the University of Pennsylvania shows that only 4% of the one million MOOC users actually completed their courses. The self-discipline and motivation required to see the MOOCs through to the end is huge. Pickard admits that maintaining this motivation can be challenging which is why she created the blog.  “I’ve made a public commitment,” she tells CNN, “so it doesn’t matter how many readers I have, even if it’s just me and a few of my friends. It motivates me to know that there’s some kind of external evidence of whether I made good on my commitment,” she explains.

Interested in taking up a MOOC? Have a look at these sites:

EdX

Udacity

Coursera

Webcast (UC Berkeley)

iTunesU

Take a look at our new Online MBA rankings from January 23rd 2014 ›