alt Hacker News> If we went back to recording lectures by the worlds best and putting it online for free with attached books and exercises, we could improve the world a lot.
I learn well this way. You learn well this way. However, the big revelation from the early experiments with online courses and MOOCs is that most people don’t.
Fundamentals of math, history, physics, and other core topics aren’t changing except maybe for some context on current applications (e.g. how math applies to machine learning, how historical context relates to current events). Those same online course recordings you watched are still valid. There is some room for improvement with new recordings with new gear and better audio, but it’s marginal.
Once those courses are recorded and released, we don’t need to keep doing it every year over and over again. The material is out there, it’s just not popular to self-learn at a self-directed pace.
You need forced exercises, you need grading, you need something of a schedule. Not to say people can't do it. But, especially for difficult material, even a lot of motivated people won't.
I mean I remember what undergrad (and grad school) was like and I'm pretty sure doing that independently and optionally would be tough.