I just saw the end of a segment of Charlie Rose on Public Television.  He interviewed Stanford Professor Sebastian Thrun who is  very concerned that only 1% of the world is eligible to get a quality Stanford level of education.  He is concerned about the uneducated masses who cannot afford a $40k per year education, which seems to get discounted by much of our countrymen, well at least the privatized Student Loan companies these days.

 His point is that the system in US as well as Europe is geared toward restraining people from if they don't jump through hoops:  If you get a C you won't get accepted to a good college (unless you have a Presidential father who can grease your way in.) Hmmm, remember Einstein?? 

Thrun proved his point by teaching free courses via pod casts to tens of thousands of people.  Free. No Dollah. He has started something and it may well be the catalyst we need to re-direct our future and give some real tools to the next generations.  A podcast is currently available for free that will teach us to build our own search engines in seven weeks.

Thrun calls sit Udacidy and he's very excited about it. And I frankly am astonished on one hand that it is not thoroughly incorporated into our educational system!  

http://diyscholar.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/the-audacity-of-udacity/

IMAGINE!  I could finish up my 40+ year old dream of getting a degree in physical and cultural anthropology!  For Free.

Just when I was getting frightened about the lack of education available to young people (college tuition has gone up 600% since the 1950s) the miracle of the darned Internet that I often gripe about shines a light.!

BTW:  Stanford has a class that will take a not too computer savvy novice like me, and in seven weeks I will be able to build my own search engine.