by Alex Friedrich, Minnesota Public Radio

October 29, 2012

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ST. PAUL, Minn. In the past year, some of the nation's most prominent colleges and universities have begun offering online courses in a way that could transform higher education.

Online education isn't new. But it could soon begin to replace the traditional classroom setting for many.

A little or no cost to students, Stanford and Harvard universities, the University of Pennsylvania and others are offering easy access to online classes and they're doing it on a gigantic scale.

In higher education, such efforts are called massive open online courses, in which tens of thousands of students commonly take a class at the same time. One University of Michigan finance course has drawn upwards of 130,000 people.

The courses are designed to be easily accessible, College of St. Scholastica President Larry Goodwin said.

The most well-known online education players, however, are three companies: Coursera, edX and Udacity.

Coursera offers instruction through 33 partner universities, which create the free classes. After college faculty teach the course, Coursera offers them through an online stream.

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As colleges improve online course offerings, students are greatly receptive