The announcement of the OpenClass venture between Pearson and Google caused a buzz. It also started a conversation in education circles about the meaning of "free."

Free often means "no cost." The number of low to no cost education opportunities available today is growing.

One example is the University of the People, a tuition-free online university. A collaboration between the UN, Yale, NYU and HP, UPeople offers four undergrad degrees; an Associates and Bachelor of Business Administration and an Associates and Bachelor in Computer Science. There are nominal application and exam processing fees (based on country of residency) but the intent is to make admissions all-inclusive as possible. Their stated mission is to "ensure that no student will be denied the right to access higher education."

Another initiative starting in the Spring of 2012 is MIT's free education prototype titled MITx. This program will provide some structure to MIT's OpenCourseWare that has been available for a decade now. The virtual university will offer some certifications but NOT MIT degrees. This will prevent any dilution of the MIT brand.

An education free of cost is becoming a possibility. Of course, it's yet to be seen if these educations will lead to employment which is the ultimate goal of most students. The questions of accreditation, learning assessment and credentials will need to be resolved to allow for cultural acceptance of free, online university degrees.

Free can also mean "unbound" and this leads to a more sensitive and sometimes inflammatory discussion. Open educational resources are a trend in higher education. Publicly available and reusable content ensures that educators are not locked into any one publisher or LMS. When OpenClass was first announced, the question immediately arose as to whether courses offered in it could be moved or reused elsewhere. Also, would educators be able to use external resources or would they be locked into content from one publisher on this new platform?

Regardless of how OpenClass and other similar projects fully actualize, you have to admit that this is an exciting time in education. Technology is providing for innovation that allows educators to more effectively reach broader audiences and that can only benefit society.