StraighterLine launches Professor Direct, college profs now set prices for own online classes

In November, Technically Baltimore reported that StraighterLine founder and CEO Burck Smith had something big hiding up his sleeve. OK, so IT — a tool that would allow college professors to set prices for their own online courses on StraighterLine — wasn’t really hiding so much as it hadn’t been officially rolled out yet.

Now that tool, Professor Direct, is up and running, as The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, allowing “instructors [to] determine not only how much to charge for such courses, but also how much time they want to devote to services like office hours, online tutorials, and responding to students’ e-mails.”
As for the pricing model: Smith is true to his word, and professors can charge whatever they want for courses, provided it’s more than StraighterLine’s base price-per-course of $49. So an instructor charging $100 for her math class will make $51.
Oh, and, three cheers for StraighterLine unveiling its redesigned website.