Dive Brief:

• EdSurge profiles the growth of massive online open courses in 2016, which attracted more than 58 million students in over 700 colleges and universities last year. 
• The top three MOOC providers — Coursera, Udacity and EdX — collectively grossed more than $100 million last year, as much of the content provided on these platforms shifted from free to paywall guarded materials. 
• Many MOOCs have moved to offering credentialing programs or nanodegree offerings to increase their value in industrial marketplaces. 

Dive Insight:

It is clear that MOOCs are growing as a learning and teaching resource, but colleges and universities cannot afford to be behind in developing them to fit the needs of their unique student bodies and corporate pairing objectives.

Leaders should consider opportunities to partner with corporations and businesses to create training programs which help employees work more efficiently and produce more, while training traditional and non-traditional students to serve in emerging or high-impact industries of the future.