{"id":1665,"date":"2010-02-20T14:32:31","date_gmt":"2010-02-20T19:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=1665"},"modified":"2010-02-20T14:50:22","modified_gmt":"2010-02-20T19:50:22","slug":"online-college-services-company-raises-5-5-million-in-venture-backing-from-statesman-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2010\/02\/20\/online-college-services-company-raises-5-5-million-in-venture-backing-from-statesman-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Online college services company raises $5.5 million in venture backing — from statesman.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Online college services company raises $5.5 million in venture backing<\/strong><\/a> — from statesman.com by Lori Hawkins<\/p>\n

Austin-based MyEdu , an online service for college students, has raised $5.5 million from Bain Capital Ventures to expand its marketing efforts and product development.<\/p>\n

Founded in 2008 by software veteran Michael Crosno , MyEdu operates a Web-based service that helps students make decisions about their courses, schedules, professors and majors. The company said more than 2 million students have used MyEdu, which offers academic data from 750 universities.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

He started MyEdu by acquiring Austin-based Pick-A-Prof<\/strong> (emphasis DSC)<\/em>, which was co-founded in 2000 by Chris Chilek and John Cunningham , William Cunningham’s son.<\/p>\n

Pick-A-Prof had built a base of 1.5 million users at 200 universities by providing online information about professors, including grading patterns, average drop rates and student reviews, as well as schedule planners.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

MyEdu estimates that the average cost of a dropped class is $3,000 and that 70 percent of students transfer schools or change majors, resulting in five to six classes that don’t count toward their degree.<\/p>\n

From DSC:<\/strong>
\nWhy do I post this? Because it points out the continuing shift in power<\/strong> that is starting to be enjoyed by the students of our universities and colleges. They are now able to obtain information from other students who have taken course XYZ at U of ABC and can get information about that experience. <\/span><\/p>\n

I’m not saying that all of this is a good thing, as many students might try to find out who’s giving all A’s and just go with those folks. This may not serve our students — and our society — very well in the long run. As frequently the case with tech-enabled directions like this, there seems to be advantages on one hand, and disadvantages on the other.\u00a0 For example, when the myEdu site says, “Choose the best professors” — the “best professors” for one student might be very different for what constitutes the “best professors” for another.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Online college services company raises $5.5 million in venture backing — from statesman.com by Lori Hawkins Austin-based MyEdu , an online service for college students, has raised $5.5 million from Bain Capital Ventures to expand its marketing efforts and product development. Founded in 2008 by software veteran Michael Crosno , MyEdu operates a Web-based service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,35,66],"tags":[605,585,603],"class_list":["post-1665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faculty-staff","category-game-changing-environment","category-student-related","tag-faculty-staff","tag-game-changing-environment","tag-student-related"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1665"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1680,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1665\/revisions\/1680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}