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While most universities are increasing tuition rates exponentially, others are taking a different approach.  Coined the “Hulu for education,” Academic Earth provides an arena where students and other individuals can access valuable academic content for free from many of the top universities including NYU, Princeton, Harvard, Yale, and other prestigious universities.  The website is clean and fresh offering what could be viewed as the “Apple” experience in terms of usability and search-ability.

The site was started by a former Yale student, Richard Ludlow, who figured there should be an easier way to find educational resources on the web. He had difficulty finding information for his Linear Algebra course and  came up with the idea to aggregate educational resources in one place so that anyone that wants to learn can easily find what they’re searching for.  Today, Academic Earth has 60 courses from the aforementioned universities with courses that run the gamut, including some for Black Studies.

One big question that’s probably lingering in many minds is “how is all this ivy-league invaluable content given away for free?  The one thing to keep in mind is that Academic Earth’s core functionality is as an agreggator.  With that said, all the information out now that they are accessing were free in the first place.  In a sense, Academic Earth is doing the university a favor by helping promote their school and broadcast their content in a seamless, user-friendly manner.  Also, future plans include the attempt to have advertising and sponsorships associated with some of the content which would be split with the respective institutions, offering them a form of revenue they’d have otherwise not taken advantage of.

Now the other question is that now that this access to education is ubiquitous, does it mean that those who cannot afford a good education can utilize and now create their own “education” from viewing these videos to help propel them in the world, or will those only who have the official diploma have the true dream of success?