Administrators at the University of Illinois say they're pondering the future of their free, online courses.
The (Champaign) News-Gazette says more than 300,000 people from around the world have signed up to take classes from the school through Coursera, a for-profit online education platform.
But only a fraction of those students ever complete a course.
Jonathan Tomkin has taught ``Introduction to Sustainability'' three times on Coursera, which also offers free classes from dozens of universities. During the most recent semester, 20,000 people were enrolled in his class _ although only about 2,000 got a certificate of completion.
Coursera courses are free, but universities may get some revenue by charging students $30 to $80 for a certificate showing they completed a class.
