The Completion Project — the numbers

Harvard and MIT put their courses online.

For free.

Three percent of people finished.

Six years of data. Every course.

Of everyone who registered in 2017–18

3.13%completed

That is roughly three people in a hundred.

Computed figure, 2017–18. Reich & Ruipérez-Valiente (2019).

Six years of better video, better platforms, more courses.

Completion went down.

~6%

2014–15inferred

~4%

2015–16inferred

~4%

2016–17inferred

3.13%

2017–18computed

Share of all participants completing, Harvard and MIT courses on edX

Three of these four are read from the paper's prose — “nearly 6 percent”, “about 4 percent” — not from a published table, and are shown at that precision and no finer. Four annual points, three of them inferred, do not support a trend line, so none is drawn.

The number nobody talks about

52%registered,
never started

Not “started and struggled.” Never opened it.

They sit in the denominator of every completion rate on this page.

97 of every 100 will not finish.

If the best free courses in the world can't carry people to the finish line,

what will?

Source and reuse

Source. Reich, Justin, and José A. Ruipérez-Valiente. “The MOOC Pivot.” Science 363, no. 6423 (2019): 130–131. Open-access author manuscript: hdl.handle.net/1721.1/136215. It covers every MIT and Harvard course on edX from 2012 to 2018 and remains the most complete study of self-directed online learning at that scale.

What is computed and what is inferred. 3.13 percent and 52 percent are figures the paper states for 2017–18. The 2014–15 through 2016–17 bars are read from its prose and are marked inferred wherever they appear. No figure on this page is presented at a precision its source does not support, and no series is extended past its last observation.

Denominator. Every rate here is on an all participants basis — everyone who registered, including the 52 percent who never opened the coursework. A rate quoted on a different denominator is a different number, and the ALEX Institute states its denominator wherever it reports its own.

Reuse. The figures belong to the study and are reproduced here under ordinary citation. The charts and the words around them are ALEX Institute's own; ask before reusing them and the answer will almost certainly be yes.

Apply

These numbers are the reason the Institute exists.

Five ways in: student, mentor, subject-matter expert, guest speaker or member of the Completion Project Advisory Council. One page, and the first question is which one you are.

Apply as a student

You have started something and want to finish it.

Become a mentor

One to ten students, for the length of their program.

Volunteer as an expert

Answer student questions in the courses you know.

Offer to speak

One session, on something you know well.

Become a Member of the Completion Project Advisory Council

Provide independent guidance on what the Completion Project teaches and whether people finish.

The coursework is already free. The finishing is the hard part.

ALEX Institute supplies the part these numbers are missing: a named mentor for every participant, a subject-matter expert for every class, and somebody who notices in week two when a person stops showing up.

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