Harvard Held the Future of Education in Its Hands. Then We Sold It. | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson

"Most proposals to make Harvard more inclusive are either expensive (campus expansion) or illegal (race-based affirmative action).

Broader access to higher education is certainly a goal worth striving for. But many reforms, if enacted, would ultimately have little-to-no impact on most people. Every year, hundreds of thousands of high school graduates apply to colleges and receive zero acceptances. Even the more ambitious proposals — enrolling an extra thousand students per year, for example — would barely make a dent in the problem.

What we need is a way to extend Harvard’s reach that is not only inexpensive and legal, but that also benefits more than just the lucky few thousand our campus can house.

Sounds like a pipe dream. It’s not.

In fact, the solution already existed: EdX, a nonprofit online education platform founded in 2012 by Harvard and MIT has offered classes to millions of learners worldwide since its inception, totally free of charge. Flash forward to 2023 and the schools have sold edX to a for-profit company now at risk of bankruptcy, endangering the future of accessible online higher education...."