BarnesandNoble.com, Schwab.com and other sites have adopted this approach -- although, notably, they have so far steered clear of charging for courses.
The education minister, Simon Birmingham, says the new figures his department released on Monday highlight the "staggering" gap between what providers have been charging for courses and what a Tafe would charge.
In the suit, to be filed in a state court in Los Angeles on Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California names 35 school districts across California that list on their Web sites the fees their schools charge for courses including art, home economics and music, for Advanced Placement tests and for materials including gym uniforms.
"We don't plan to charge for courses now," Sims told me in an interview.
The latest expansion in prestigious online universities in the US includes plans to charge for courses which will count towards degrees.
But he notes that while charging for courses, or perhaps for those created, say, for a specific program, may be one area to consider, so might be new areas on the site, such as job listings to offer students ideas of where they may eventually be able to apply their skills.
They aren't charged for offering free courses at all.
The $90 charged for a three-course prix fixe is reasonable, given everything that's provided: from croutons with foie gras and truffled cream cheese spreads at the start to a flurry of first-rate petits fours at the end.
"A key aspect of the debate on the increase in tuition fees was disagreements over how much a student would expect to be charged for a university course," the MPs noted.
To incentivise course creation, it has one carrot: It's giving instructors the option to charge for their courses — taking a 9percentt cut of any fees to fuel its own business model.
