Arizona State University tries education through YouTube

Share this article

One of the silver linings from the pandemic is that people are rethinking education options and accessibility. Arizona State University (ASU), a public, taxpayer-funded university in Tempe, Arizona, officially announced a partnership with YouTube and a leading content channel called Crash Course to create more access to education.

Crash Course, a channel founded by brothers John and Hank Green, has over 14 million subscribers

Inside Higher Ed reported the news about the partnership. It noted that YouTube is the world’s second-most-visited website after Google and users watch over one billion hours of video per day. 81% of U.S. adults spend time on the social media, video-based platform, but the majority of YouTube users (80%) are from places not named the United States of America.

The partnership means that online students can take online courses where the credits are transferable and count toward a college degree.

When a prospective online student watches the “Study Hall” channel, they can select four “college foundation” courses such as college math, U.S. history, human communication, or English composition. By January 2025, ASU expects to expand the number of courses to twelve total courses.

Study Hall has about 42,000 subscribers.

If the student would like to go through formal coursework, they can pay a $25 fee to enroll into an online ASU course for seven weeks. After the seven weeks are done, the student receives a grade but has the option to pay $400 to record the grade and receive the credit, or not to. ASU will not force students to pay for an unsatisfactory grade and the student can take the course as many times as they would prefer.

ASU Learning Enterprise Executive Vice President, Maria Anguiano, said, “We’re meeting learners where they are. Ultimately, they are on YouTube, and we’re excited to democratize the access to information and opportunity.”