Why MOOCs will fail – they're not dating sites

(2) the importance of finishing them (called the sheepskin effect), ideally at prestigious places.

Now MOOCs might well be more effective ways of studying, especially of hard things. And MOOCs are tightly linked with some of the world’s most prestigious universities (e.g. here and here).

But are MOOCs more effective ways of dating? That’s the question it seems that no-one is asking. This matters because, as the Danish study shows, a large component of the return to higher education is due to better quality matches in household formation.

And if MOOCs are terrible at that (this is not a foregone conclusion; they may evolve to include local meetups, for instance) then that may well be the unreplicable competitive advantage (what investors call a ‘moat’) classic universities have.

This is not really the argument that most Vice Chancellors have in mind when selling their product (and paying my salary!). And it’s also likely that this private benefit translates into some social harm when assortative mating drives income inequality (see here, and here).

But the real story here is that those same Vice Chancellors shepherding their university’s enormous property portfolios might sleep a little easier knowing that these MOOCs are not going to eat their lunch and destroy their business model with their relentless cost advantages. Because MOOCs can’t supply the thing that Danish men and women, and likely Australian ones too, also want in their return to schooling – high quality matches not just with jobs, but with each other.