I wonder if in the future, some bright youngsters will get certifications from MITx (or similar places), get good, intellectually challenging jobs based on these credentials, and not need to spend 4 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on a B.A.
Just thinking about this from the perspective of law schools, the only reason that I went to Duke for law school was because of it's rank as a T14.
I basically paid for a title of nobility, for lack of a better phrase. Granted, it's a lesser title (and I'm still kind of ashamed since it isn't Harvard or Yale), but I knew I was buying a title and wasn't really trying to get an education.
There is a lot of guild structure built into the career tracks that lead to high income jobs, such as BigLaw (I personally actually avoided NYC and DC as places to work because I figured they would kill me - I've chosen sanity over income).
This will be useful for certain types of employment, but not some of the larger pipelines. My guess is that the larger impact will be felt at the community college and state school levels. Ultimately, employers will have to decide what it means.
