From KCRW in Santa Monica and PRI, Public Radio International, this is To the Point.

Can higher education be democratized on the Internet?

Hello again, I'm Armin Alney, and this is To the Point from Public Radio International.

A daily look at the issues, Americans care about most. Stanford, Harvard, and other prestigious schools are reaching millions

of students worldwide with massive open online courses or MOOCs. And MOOCs are only a year old,

leading divisions of broader access to higher education at vastly reduced cost.

Today we'll hear what it's like to take a college course from a computer and what it's like to teach to a machine instead of a classroom.

Will MOOCs count for college credit?

How long will they be offered for free?

On reporter's notebook later on, Syrian refugees face the oncoming winter cold. First, here's the news.

Support for To the Point comes from the members of KCRW and from the Public Radio International Program Fund.

Hello again, Warman Al-Nayback with To The Point. If you've never heard of a MOOC, don't worry.

Massive open online courses are only a year old. But Stanford, Harvard, and other prestigious schools are now using them to reach millions of students worldwide.

We'll hear about the benefits and the limits of higher education on the Internet.

On reporter's notebook, the Al-Assad regime's war on its own people has

turned more than a million Syrians into refugees. We'll hear what life is like as winter begins

in a refugee camp in Jordan. First, this news update. Egypt's first elected president,

Mohamed Morsi, met with the Supreme Council of the Judiciary today. After his decree of virtually

absolute power led to days of

street protests all over the country. David Kirkpatrick is Cairo Bureau Chief of the New York Times.

David, thanks very much for joining us.

It's good to be here.

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