YouTube & Arizona State University Team Up to Offer Online Courses for Real College Credits

A recent Pew Research Cen­ter sur­vey found that near­ly one in five Amer­i­can teenagers is on Youtube “almost con­stant­ly.” Ten years ago, the fig­ure sure­ly would­n’t have been that high, and twen­ty years ago, of course, Youtube did­n’t exist at all. But today, no enter­prise direct­ed at teenagers can afford to ignore it: that goes for pop music and fash­ion, of course, but also for edu­ca­tion. Most kids just start­ing col­lege are on Youtube, but so are those about to start col­lege, those tak­ing time off from col­lege, and those unsure of whether they’re will­ing or able to go to col­lege at all. Hence Col­lege Foun­da­tion, a new exten­sion of Youtube chan­nel Study Hall, the prod­uct of a part­ner­ship between Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty, YouTube and Crash Course.

Crash Course has long pro­duced video series that, both enter­tain­ing­ly and at length, cov­er sub­jects taught in school from his­to­ry to lit­er­a­ture to phi­los­o­phy and beyond. The Col­lege Foun­da­tion’s pro­gram will make it pos­si­ble not just to learn on Study Hall, but to earn real col­lege cred­its as well.

“Stu­dents who are inter­est­ed in for­mal course­work beyond watch­ing the videos may pay a $25 fee to enroll in an ASU online course that includes inter­act­ing with oth­er stu­dents and instruc­tors,” writes Inside High­er Edu­ca­tion’s Susan D’Agosti­no. Upon com­ple­tion of the course, “the stu­dent can decide whether they would like to pay $400 to record the grade and receive ASU cred­it.”

Enroll­ment is now open for the first four Col­lege Foun­da­tions cours­es, Eng­lish Com­po­si­tion, Col­lege Math, U.S. His­to­ry and Human Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, all of which begin on March 7th. (Those who sign up before that start date will receive a $50 dis­count.) “Once you’re in a course, you can con­tact a suc­cess coach via email to get help with assign­ments,” writes TechCrunch’s Aisha Malik. “You can com­plete your course­work when it’s con­ve­nient for you, but you will have week­ly due dates for most of the cours­es. If you want to access addi­tion­al sup­port, some instruc­tors hold option­al office hours.” This sort of learn­ing expe­ri­ence could become a bridge to Youtube life and col­lege life — the lat­ter being the sub­ject addressed, with char­ac­ter­is­tic Youtube direct­ness, in the exist­ing Study Hall course “How to Col­lege.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

A Crash Course in World His­to­ry

Crash Course Phi­los­o­phy: Hank Green’s Fast-Paced Intro­duc­tion to Phi­los­o­phy Gets Under­way on YouTube

Crash Course on Lit­er­a­ture: Watch John Green’s Fun Intro­duc­tions to Gats­by, Catch­er in the Rye & Oth­er Clas­sics

A Crash Course on Psy­chol­o­gy: A 30-Part Video Series from Hank Green

Crash Course Big His­to­ry: John Green Teach­es Life, the Uni­verse & Every­thing

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.