The cost of attending Stanford? Between $200,000 and half a million dollars.
The cost of building a custom search engine? A few thousand bucks.
Four years at Udacity, the new educational venture founded by Stanford roboticist Sebastian Thrun? Priceless… literally. Udacity is free for with internet access and modicum of self discipline. The first will connect you to "MOOCs,” or Massive Open Online Courses that can be simultaneously taken by thousands of global students. The second will keep you coming back. Kevin Redmon is a freelance journalist living in D.C. He wrote aboutthe rise of MOOCs and his own Udacity experience for Pacific Standardand Prospect magazine.