????如果一切順利，勞里?皮卡德將以不足1,000美元的代價，在三年內獲得自己的MBA學位。她將攻讀哈佛（Harvard）、沃頓（Wharton）和耶魯（Yale）以及其他頂級商學院的課程。而與此同時，她可以繼續在美國國際開發署（USAID）的全職工作，擔任鄉鎮企業開發與創業專員。她將在盧旺達的基加利完成自己的學業。

????這樣的好事聽起來令人難以置信，但32歲的勞里卻志在必得。如果成功取得MBA學位，她將成為世界上第一個通過大規模在線公開課（MOOC）平臺集齊整套工商管理課程的人。MOOC提供免費或廉價課程，只要有互聯網連接，任何人都可以訪問、學習。

????一開始，皮卡德并未打算花很少的錢去接受商學教育。實際上，她最初關注的是更為傳統的途徑，而且，從她的背景來看，她也有條件去攻讀一個精英課程。皮卡德的履歷中包括歐柏林大學（Oberlin College）政治學專業文學學士學位、坦普爾大學（Temple University）地理與城市研究專業文學碩士學位，還曾參加過美國和平隊（Peace Corps），并擔任過國際金融公司（International Finance Corporation）駐尼加拉瓜的工作人員。

????她說：“我開始考慮的是傳統的、位于美國的高端MBA課程，價格昂貴。但后來我放棄了這種想法，轉而考慮學期較短的位于歐洲的MBA課程。因為這些課程只需要一半的時間，成本只有美國課程的四分之一左右。”皮卡德自己也承認，她“并不是從一開始就接受”MOOC這種方式。但后來一位朋友在MOOC提供商Coursera報了一門金融課程，于是她也開始重新考慮傳統MBA。她說：“我在想：‘我也可以這么做。’于是，我開始查找相關的信息，正是在那時，我開始萌生了通過免費課程攻讀MBA的想法。”

????皮卡德在互聯網上四處搜索其他MOOC MBA課程，結果卻一無所獲。她找到了一些從投機角度來討論這個問題的文章，但除了社交網站Poets&Quants的有關文章外，其他的文章都沒有提到具體的做法。于是，皮卡德決定在個人博客“免費MBA”（The No-Pay MBA）中記錄自己的學習歷程，供其他有類似想法的學生借鑒。到目前為止，共有五到十位志同道合的學生與她取得了聯系。

????一年前，不可能會有人想到能通過MOOC取得MBA。但據國際商學院聯合會（Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International）統計，在2012年2月至11月的九個月期間，提供免費在線商學課程的機構數量從26家增加到51家，翻了一番。與此同時，教授MOOC課程的商學教師數量也增加了一倍以上，從39名增加到83名。

????皮卡德研究了沃頓、哈佛、斯坦福（Stanford）和麻省理工（MIT）等商學院的課程，制定了自己的課程計劃。她的課程設計非常靈活，因為MOOC課程沒有保障：“你不知道它們會什么時候提供，也不知道它們還會不會再次提供。”因此，她并沒有設定一個嚴格的課程列表，而是按照課題組織學習過程。第一學期，她選擇了標準MBA核心課程中常見的三個課題：管理、商業道德和領導力，另外還包括金融與會計。這些課程既有沃頓商學院克里斯蒂安?特爾維施教授的《運營管理入門》（An Introduction to Operations），也有日內瓦大學（University of Geneva）多位教授授課的《國際組織管理》(International Organizations Management)。皮卡德從多個MOOC平臺選擇課程，包括Coursera、Open Yale、iTunesU和Udacity等。到目前為止，Coursera所提供課程的多樣性和質量以及Udacity的實踐技能方法給她留下了最深刻的印象。不過，她一直期待著哈佛商學院能推出MOOC平臺——但后者的正式發布時間目前仍然不清楚。

????If everything goes according to plan, Laurie Pickard will earn her MBA in three years for less than $1,000. She'll take classes from Harvard, Wharton, and Yale, among other top-tier schools. And she'll tackle it all while keeping her full-time job as a rural enterprise development and entrepreneurship specialist at USAID. She'll accomplish all of this from Kigali, Rwanda.

????It sounds too good to be true. But Pickard, 32, is determined to pull it off. If successful, she'll arguably be the first person in the world to cobble together an MBA program from massive open online courses (MOOCs), free or low-cost classes accessible to anyone with Internet access.

????Pickard didn't plan to pave the way for earning a dirt-cheap business education. In fact, she initially had her sights set on a more conventional path -- and she has the background to get into an elite program. Pickard's resume includes a B.A. in politics from Oberlin College, an M.A. in geography and urban studies from Temple University, and stints with the Peace Corps and the International Finance Corporation in Nicaragua.

????"I was looking at traditional, U.S.-based, high-end, expensive MBAs, and then I kind of dropped that idea in favor of shorter, European-based MBAs ... that take half the time and cost a quarter as much," she says. By her own admission, Pickard was "not an early adopter" of the MOOC movement. But after a friend enrolled in a finance course with MOOC provider Coursera, she reconsidered the traditional MBA. "I was thinking, 'I could do that.' And so I started looking into what was out there, and that's when I got this idea that I should just do an MBA out of free courses," she says.

????Pickard scoured the Internet to find other MOOC MBAs, but came up dry. She uncovered a few articles that discussed the subject from a speculative standpoint, but outside of Poets&Quants' story on the subject, none suggested ways to actually do it. Pickard decided she would document her own journey in a blog, The No-Pay MBA, so other like-minded students could use her path as a resource. So far, five to 10 students attempting the same thing have reached out to her.

????Only a year ago, it would not have been possible to even consider getting the equivalent of an MBA via MOOCs. But in the space of just nine months in 2012, from February to November, the number of institutions offering free online business courses has doubled to 51 from 26, according to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. The number of business faculty teaching MOOC courses has more than doubled in the same timeframe to 83 from 39.

????Pickard developed her program by reviewing B-school curricula at Wharton, Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. She designed it to be flexible because MOOC courses are not guaranteed: "You have no idea when they'll be offered and if they'll ever be offered again," she points out. Rather than setting a strict course list, she organized her degree path by themes. Her first semester tackles three topics generally found in a standard MBA core curriculum: management, business ethics and leadership, as well as finance and accounting. The courses range from An Introduction to Operations taught by Wharton's Christian Terwiesch, to International Organizations Management, led by a group of professors from the University of Geneva. Pickard selects her classes from a variety of MOOC platforms, including Coursera, Open Yale, iTunesU, and Udacity. So far, she has been most impressed with the variety and quality of Coursera's offerings, and Udacity's practical-skill approach. But she's eagerly awaiting the release of Harvard Business School's MOOCs -- the official launch date remains unknown.