Will edX Put Harvard and MIT Out of Business?

I received an interesting email from "James in Arizona" today. James offers this comment on online education. Greetings from Arizona, Mish, I ran across this website while exploring various online options for my daughter (in high school, but she’s very computer savvy, so I’m looking for options to expand her interests/basis). It is EdX, an online education group started by Harvard and MIT, but other universities are joining.

First Wharton decided to offer the core of its first year MBA program online. Now Harvard Business School is exploring online options as well. 

A few weeks after Wharton announced that it would be offering a substantial part of its core MBA classes online, Harvard business school is developing online courses of its own, according to a report

Online courses, and massively open online courses (MOOCs) in particular, are quickly moving from a novelty to the mainstream. Leading colleges, graduate schools, and companies are investing significant resources into free education.

One of the common complaints about Wall Street is that it sucks up a lot of Ivy League talent that could be going toward more productive endeavors. The common assumption is that the students are just following the money. But, my friend, an anonymous Harvard graduate who spent some time on Wall Street says that's not always the case. An edited transcription of our conversation follows: You went to Harvard. Then what happened?

Companies take note: hiring a veteran of the U.S. Military comes with a host of benefits. 

Harvard comes out on top, followed by the University of Tokyo and Stanford. Those are the schools that the greatest number of CEOS among the world’s top 500 corporations, have on their résumés. Twenty-five of the 500 went to Harvard, 13 went to the University of Tokyo and 11 to Stanford. Times Higher Education (THE), a London magazine that tracks the higher education market, combed through the list of the world’s 500 top CEOS and examined the educational background of each boss. It produced a list of CEOs and their degrees. Read the complete list here.

January isn't usually known as a time when Wall Streeters start passing around their resumes, but that's starting to change, and it's all because of bonus season. Since the financial crisis, bulge bracket Wall Street banks have been handing out smaller bonuses made up of less cash. Now when bankers aren't happy with what they've taken home at the end of the year, they start to look for options elsewhere.