L. Rafael Reif

President Obama began his 2012 presidential campaign last month with a stop at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he addressed young, swing-state voters about the need for affordable higher education in the coming decades. The question that remains is how can public universities keep tuition costs down in a depressed economy. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology might have an answer. This spring, MIT announced the launch of MITx, an online learning platform that offers MIT classes for free.