Pressure to start generating serious revenues is mounting for American xMOOC providers. Venture Capitalists generally lack patience when it comes to returns on investment and some xMOOCs draw heavily from this funding source. Notably Udacity and Coursera.
As it bows to pressures from conventional educational communities and investors to align the company more closely with traditional educational offerings and standards, Udacity appears to be poised to become a more traditional independent provider of online education. Courses can still be accessed free of charge, but participation in the hopes of accreditation will cost.
Udacity has decided to shift its business model. Instead of offering a wide variety of courses in many disciplines, they have decided to focus on developing a full online undergraduate and graduate degree in computer science. In effect, instead of breadth, they want to achieve depth in their program offerings.
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