Course It
Between 2012 and 2018, MIT and Harvard opened courses to the whole world, for free, through edX. 5.63 million people signed up. When two researchers from those universities checked how many finished, the number was lower than anyone expected: in 2017-18, 3.13% of learners completed their course.1
And it didn't improve over time. It dropped. In 2014-15 it was close to 6%. Three years later, nearly half that.2
Same course, different result
In the very same courses, one group behaved completely differently: people who chose the verified track, paid, with a certificate. In 2017-18, 46% of them finished. Same chapters, same instructors, and almost fourteen times as many people reaching the end.
Payment alone doesn't explain it. What it signals is a reason: the people on that track knew why they were there, and what they wanted to take away.
What carries a learner to the end
A clear reason. A learner who knows what they'll do after the course keeps going, even through the chapter that's hard for them.
Hands-on work. A chapter that ends with something to do, with your hands, brings the learner back next time. A chapter that ends with a summary is forgotten by tomorrow.
Pace. A course built around what you actually need to know, short and to the point, leaves fewer moments where it's easy to stop and not come back.
And coming back. The same study found that in 2012-13, 38% of first-time learners returned for another course the next year. In 2016-17, 7% did. People who didn't finish usually didn't return either.
A course gets finished when every chapter gives you a reason to open the next one.
And what isn't up to the course
To be honest about it: not every drop-off is a failure. Some people sign up for open courses just to look around, take one chapter and move on. For them, the course did its job.
And this data comes from open university courses, free, for a global audience that doesn't know the instructor. A course from someone the learners already know and trust is a different situation, and the numbers don't carry over one to one.
Our take
A good course gives you a reason to open the next chapter.
Good content is only the start. What gets learners to the end is what they do in every chapter, and the sense that the person teaching them has done it themselves.
What this says about you
If you're thinking about a course, the first question worth asking is what learners will do at the end of each chapter. That answer decides, more than anything else, whether they'll reach the last one.
3% finished when nobody expected anything of them. 46% finished when they had a reason. That difference is the course.
