"The new digital credentials can solve this problem by providing exponentially more information. Think about all the work you did in college. Unless you’re a recent college graduate, how much of it was saved and archived in a way that you can access now? What about the skills you acquired in various jobs? Digital learning environments can save and organize almost everything. Here, in the “unlabeled” folder, are all of my notes, tests, homework, syllabus and grades from the edX genetics course. My “real” college courses, by contrast, are lost to history, with only an inscrutable abbreviation on a paper transcript suggesting that they ever happened at all."

Exactly. On the merits, a MOOC degree ought to be infinitely more worthwhile than any traditional college degree. MOOC completion (quite literally) demonstrates project work, practical skills, attendance, and interaction. The courses themselves are the highest quality in the world and the rigor and impartiality is available for all the world to see. In a sane world, MOOCs will inherit global education.

But the world hasn't caught up yet. Right now the only commonly understood credential is the college degree, which everyone knows can be accomplished through registering for bullshit courses, skipping class, plagiarizing occasional essays nobody will ever read, and earning a one-word major that does nothing to prove any actual skills. Historically, this is as good as we've been able to do. No longer.

Give it time. There are entrenched interests here -- not only the massive and powerful education industry, which is now obsolete, but also every existing college graduate whose expensive credentials are now threatened by the radically superior MOOC certificate. Not to pick on teacher unions in particular, but several states require infamously pointless masters degrees in education before you can teach. Lawyers likewise REALLY don't need a three-year JD before we can practice... and the US stands alone in requiring bachelor's degrees prior to legal training or bar passage (with the exception of California). Virtually any non-STEM job that requires a bachelor's can be filled without the aid of expensive four-year certificates in poetry or pottery or communications. That's an enormous threat to basically every working professional in the United States.

Employ the D.E.N.N.I.S. system here.

First, demonstrate the value of MOOC certificates to employers.

Second, engage employers with hiring pipelines direct from Coursera/Udacity/edX.

Third, nurture these pipelines and grow them into a viable Github-for-employment.

Fourth, neglect protests from existing interests that have demanded advanced degrees in "teaching MOOCs" (seriously) or jeers that MOOC completion rates are low.

Fifth, inspire students with visible examples of success through MOOCs. Thiel fellows are the closest to this, but the project more closely resembles a lottery than a structured path.

Sixth, separate MOOCs entirely from their current aping of traditional courses. There is no reason whatsoever to release courses on a real-time basis, or to rely on artisanal videotaped lectures. (Though MOOCs have admittedly improved dramatically on the latter, with faster speeds, transcripts, open courseware, etc.)

Or... just withdraw federal subsidies for student loans and make host institutions partially liable for student defaults. I'd love to see the argument to pay $50k/year to attend no-name for-profit ripoffs in the middle of nowhere, versus free attendance in every Harvard course at any Starbucks in New York City.