Who Pays for MOOCs?

The question with massive open online courses (MOOCs) is not the technology or the pedagogy, but the business model: who will pay to create them? The public perception is that many on-line resources are "free", but someone has to provided the resources to set them up. Free web search engines existed long before Google, but Google found a way to make money out of them. Similarly it is possible to create a MOOC, but not clear how to fund it. Current students at educational institutions pay directly for some materials (such as text books) and for tuition, in some cases the state, or a charity, pays part of the cost. Who will pay for the MOOCs?