This is a very brave step in the right direction. In the long run they can NOT justify to give those remote learners not a "real" MIT degree (and I am sure they know this).
In the long run they can NOT justify to give those remote learners not a "real" MIT degree (and I am sure they know this).
The remote learner won't be getting the same experience as the residential learner. If nothing else, the remote leaner will be missing out on the lab work (remember "Mens et Manus") which is just as important as the academic work. As an MIT ME my lab work involved transducer work (accelerometers, strain gauges, microphones, LVDTs, DAQs, filters, etc) and manufacturing processes (CAD/CAM, injection molding, welding, machine shop, vacuum forming, CNC, etc) and actually having hands-on experience greatly assisted in my understanding of the academic work - for example, it's one thing to look at the calculations for plastic shrinkage, it's another thing to actually see how shrinkage can vary in your freshly-injection molded part, especially when the dyes used for color can affect shrinkage rates.
They can handle this. As I said, the key is to keep standards high. You don't have to do your bachelor's degree at MIT to get an MIT PhD, so MIT already considers lab work done at many other institutions sufficient to fulfill certain MIT prerequisites. They probably also accept transfer credits from other schools under various circumstances toward a B.S. They can join with Stanford, Caltech, Cambridge (UK), etc., and build on this foundation.
Sure they can, but if the students that receive MITx accreditation match the standards of certified MIT students then ideally there shouldn't be much difference, it will just take the job market a while to recognize this.
The interesting thing is that no matter what they decide to call the awarding entity, people will always refer to it as MITx (or some related moniker).
This is a very brave step in the right direction. In the long run they can NOT justify to give those remote learners not a "real" MIT degree (and I am sure they know this).