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Nardith's mom, Angelica, is a long-time client of EDAPROSPO, a local microfinance non-profit in Peru, and has built a successful combi (a bus-like taxi) business of her own. She makes enough money to take care of her family and save a little for the future. When Vittana and EDAPROSPO launched a brand-new college loan program for would-be Peruvian students back in July, Angelica jumped at the never-before-seen opportunity for her daughter. Nardith's loan was arranged and her profile appeared on Vittana. Then, because of 17 people around the world -- a mom in Norway, an MBA student in Boston, a banker in NYC, a professional poker player in Los Angeles, an engineer in Seattle, and many others -- who together lent her $700, Nardith was able to re-enroll in a nursing program

Expert Labs is a new, independent non-profit effort that's trying at its most ambitious to improve the decisions policy makers make, by giving them the tools to tap into crowdsourcing in the same way that private companies do every day. We're part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the folks who publish the journal Science) and we're backed by the MacArthur Foundation.

Choosing the academic program at a single university, they say, is a relic of a time before online education made it possible for a student in Oregon to take courses at a university in Florida

Much of the talk about this imminent unbundling has come from colleges that predict that students might want to transfer credits from other colleges that might have different missions. But the competition may also come from entities that do not even offer degrees.

The company outsources grading and other work to master’s degree-holders in India for much less than it would cost to employ similarly qualified teaching assistants in the United States.

Richard Freeland, state commissioner of higher education, defends such partnerships, which have become a source of research funds for universities.

In California, another for-profit company, Kaplan University, has signed an agreement with the community college system to deliver general education courses online, said Peter Smith, Kaplan’s senior vice president for academic strategy and the former president of the Community College of Vermont.