It’s been an exciting few days, with an article about the No-Pay MBA appearing on Poets and Quants, CNN Money/Fortune, and a host of other websites. I couldn’t be happier about the press coverage. The overall response to my project – in comments on my website and on the articles, and through Facebook and social media shares – has been incredibly positive.  I’ve even heard from a few people who have been inspired to start their own MOOC-based educational programs.

I have also, however, received a few skeptical comments. Several people have asked whether a university will be granting me a degree at the end of all this. (Answer: No.) One even wondered what would be the point of doing all this work if I wasn’t expecting to get a degree out of it.

I’m happy to accept criticism of my project – in fact, it is only by addressing its weaknesses that I can improve it. So thank you to those who have raised these questions. While thinking about the issues readers have raised, I have also been considering the material I am learning in my course on how to build a startup. One of the core components of building a startup is defining its value proposition. It is critical to understand exactly what problem your product is trying to solve, and for whom. Although I don’t have any current plans to turn the No-Pay MBA into a business, I do care about providing a valuable product to my “customers,” i.e. my readers.

I assume that, like me, my customers would like to have an MBA, but aren’t convinced that traditional degree programs are worth the time and money they cost. I created the No-Pay MBA as a solution to that problem – but as my critics have recognized, so far it is only a partial solution. The value of any degree can be broken down into three parts: what you learn, signaling, and connections. Let’s consider how the No-Pay MBA might address each of these.

Skills and knowledge are the foundation

One of my biggest questions before starting this project was whether enough information was out there, freely available, to add up to an MBA, and whether I could absorb that material through the MOOC format. The more MOOCs I complete and the more courses that come online, the more I believe that there is plenty material out there, and that I can in fact absorb it. I won’t have a problem learning as much as or more than I did in my brick-and-mortar graduate program. Especially interesting for me in reading the responses to the Poets and Quants article is that almost no one has questioned my ability to learn B-school material through MOOCs.

Again, I am reminded of my course on startups. The instructor says over and over that the only way to test your hypotheses is to “get out of the building” and speak to your potential customers. When I first started this project, I thought that the primary value of my blog would be to provide readers with a roadmap for combining courses into an MBA so that they too could acquire business skills free of charge. I still do see the roadmap function as being an important part of the blog, but I can see that there are other “pains” (to use the language of the startups course) associated with getting a MOOC-based MBA that I could address. 

A school is a brand

While new skills and information are the backbone of an education, they do not comprise its entire value – otherwise there’s no way top B-schools would be able to command upwards of $100,000 for a two-year degree when much of what they teach is available free of charge. Much of the value, and for some people the lion’s share of it, comes from the other two components – the signaling and the network.

What do I mean by signaling? When an employer sees on your resume that you got an MBA from Harvard Business School, he or she assumes you are top-notch. If you got into Harvard, you must be smart, and if you finished, you must have learned something. That is the signal that the Harvard name sends. In other words, a degree-granting institution functions like a brand.

A MOOC can’t provide the first part of the signal, since there isn’t any admissions process. It is, however, possible that some of the prestige of the universities offering MOOCs will rub off on the students who complete them – I certainly hope that is the case. But it remains to be seen whether employers will read completion of a series of MOOCs from prestigious schools as a signal of actual learning.

As I’ve said, I know I’m learning. So how can I bring credibility to the No-Pay MBA? Appearing on CNN Money certainly helps my individual case, but will it help anyone besides me? I do think that a highly publicized example can help other people by raising awareness about the possibilities MOOCs present.

I wonder whether MOOC students would find value in third-party verification – not a stack of Statements of Accomplishment, but a certificate from another provider that attests to your completion of a course of study. For a model of this approach, check out Skills Academy.

The value of a network

Most of the comments I received questioning the value of the No Pay MBA centered on signaling, but I also see a great opportunity for networking among “graduates” of self-designed degree programs. If we can organize ourselves, we could help each other out by sharing information, offering advice, and making real-world connections.  I would love to see the No Pay MBA site become a hub for people pursuing MOOC-based MBAs.

If you are attempting a MOOC MBA and can think of other ways this website can help you out, I would love to hear from you.