Coursera Rallies 36% on Its Debut, Giving the Company a Whopping Valuation of $5.8 Billion

Coursera stock rose 36% Wednesday, closing at $45 a share, on its first day of trading on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange). This surge gave the online learning platform a whopping market valuation of $5.86 billion, despite the company is still unprofitable. On Tuesday, Coursera priced its 15.73 million shares of the IPO at $33 a share, at the high end of Coursera's expected range of $30 to $33. In its offering, the company raised nearly $520 million at an implied $4.3 billion valuation. Prior to its debut, Coursera was last valued in the private market at $3.6 billion. As shown in the picture above, Coursera’s founders and CEO rang virtually the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange today, as the whole event was online, due to the pandemic. Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO at Coursera said to EdSurge that the new influx of money would be used to build more AI-based teaching. “We are always building more AI into the teaching experience and the learning experience,” he said. “On the learning side, that means more personalized learning. On the teaching side, [it means] improved student-success dashboards that predict every student’s grade every day and predict the chance that students stop [out of] the degree program.” The stock trades under the ticker symbol "COUR."   [Written by Mikel Amigot] As Coursera goes public today, we want to mark this next chapter with a heartfelt thank you. What started as an idea in 2012 has now evolved into a global community of 77 million learners. [1/5] — Coursera (@coursera) March 31, 2021 • Coursera CEO on IPO: this was a 'good time' for public debut • News about Coursera at IBL News    

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Higher Ed Institutions Function Only at 75% Capacity. This Gap Costs $50 Billion

Higher Education in the United States is only functioning at 75% capacity—leaving as many as 5 million empty classroom seats each year, says a report by Lumina Foundation. This is the result of the fact that in the last 10 years, higher education capacity has grown 26% while enrollment has only grown by 3%. On average, schools with fewer than a thousand students are down to 59% utilization. This imbalance between supply and demand has been deepened by the 2020 pandemic's impact. Underutilization—from empty classrooms to vacant labs to unused dorms—translates into higher costs for students and risks the future of higher education. Overall, it costs students, institutions, and states around $50 billion annually, according to a study completed by EY Parthenon. "Institutions whose enrollments are flat or decreasing must adapt to the reality of today’s demographics and stop acquiring land, building more dorms, hiring new faculty, and stop constructing rock walls for the 2% of students who might find them interesting," write Brad Kelsheimer and Courtney Brown, from the Lumina Foundation. Lumina encourages higher ed institutions to reinvent themselves, rethinking who they serve (i.e., adults), what they provide (i.e., employment-aligned credentials), and how they deliver. Being more relevant and accessible to adults seems a good opportunity given that 90 million working-age adults have no credentials beyond a high school diploma. Another piece of advice to reduce costs and increase efficiencies is to develop collaborations and partnerships between schools, like consortia, or shared service agreements between schools.

Over Two Billion Children and Young People Lose Out on Education Due to No Internet Access

Around 1.3 billion school-aged children aged 3-17 do not have an Internet connection at home. There is a similar lack of online access for 759 million young people aged 15-24. It means that over 65% are unconnected at home. This digital gap prevents them to acquire the skills needed to compete today and isolates them from the job market. “Lack of internet access, in the event of school closures, such as those currently experienced by millions due to COVID-19, is costing the next generation their futures," said Henrietta Fore, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director. Today, a quarter of billion students worldwide are affected by school closures due to the pandemic, relying on remote learning. The UNICEF-ITU report How Many Children and Youth Have Internet Access at Home? indicates that only 16% of the poorest households have Internet at home. UN officials consulted by IBL News highlighted that This digital divide is perpetuating inequalities. Two-thirds of children + young people do not have Internet access at home https://t.co/tyJT9OjF5V@ITU + @UNICEF call for urgent investment to bridge #DigitalDivide and ensure #LearningNeverStops pic.twitter.com/AXMvFvaA7m — ITU (@ITU) December 1, 2020

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Training Company Pluralsight.com Acquired by Equity Firm Vista for $3.5 Billion

Private investment firm Vista Equity Partners announced yesterday it was acquiring publicly-traded Pluralsight, Inc. (NASDAQ: PS) in an all-cash transaction that values the training company at approximately $3.5 billion. Shareholders will receive $20.26 in cash for each share of common stock they own. The purchase price represents a premium of 25% of the company's closing stock over the past 30 days. The agreement was unanimously approved by the Pluralsight Board of Directors. The training company indicated that "the shares subject to the voting agreement represent a majority of the current outstanding voting power." Upon completion of the transaction–expected to close in the first half of 2021–, Pluralsight will become a privately held company and shares of Pluralsight common stock will no longer be listed on any public market. Another Utah educational company, Instructure–the owner of Canvas LMS–was bought by another equity firm this year for $2 billion. Headquartered in Silicon Slopes, Utah, Pluralsight claims to serve 17,000 customers, including 70% of Fortune 500 companies. It was founded in 2004. After raising over $190 million, it went public in May 2018. Today, it offers under a monthly subscription model a catalog of 7,500 online video courses developed mostly by paid third-party authors. It has a workforce of 1,700 employees. Vista Equity Partners owns two education technology companies: PowerSchool and EAB. Its CEO, Robert F. Smith was recently in the news after paying off the debt for the spring 2019 graduating class of Morehouse College. We are excited to announce that @pluralsight has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by @Vista_Equity. With their help, we can move faster and accelerate our strategic vision. See press release for important information: https://t.co/bDSBJoQ5fC pic.twitter.com/LH6eznbNPE — Aaron Skonnard (@skonnard) December 14, 2020

A StartUp Brings Together Online Students in a COVID-Safe Campus Resort in Texas

Three Princeton University grads–in the picture below–have created a university-like environment at a resort in Texas. Students will take online classes with the colleges they are enrolled in while staying in a COVID-safe environment. It costs a $10,000 minimum for housing and meal packages. So far, it has received over 1,500 applications, enough to fill the 150 available slots, the startup company said. The U Experience plans to bring students for the spring 2021 semester, from January 28 to April 18 at Tanglewood Resort near Lake Texoma, Texas. It accepts students from traditional four-year universities as well as virtual programs. The resort includes rec sports, weekly "TEDx-style" guest lectures, nightlife, and a private room for each student. "No masks. No social distancing. A real college experience. Spring 2021," advertises the company. However, people chatting on social media are skeptical about keeping the premises virus-free and a possible outbreak. Students will be tested for the coronavirus upon arrival and regularly examined thereafter. They won’t even be allowed out to buy groceries, but they’ll have access to all the resort’s amenities. "We see online learning as the future of higher education. It has the potential to make college cheap and accessible to all," said its CEO and Co-Founder, Lane Rusell. "The impediment is it's not very attractive to think of being stuck at your parents' house taking lessons on a computer and never going outside." The application process will be nontraditional. Students can view each others' online profiles and "like" those of their friends or students they want to meet. The student feedback won't determine admission but will play a role. The founders have almost 150,000 followers on Instagram. College kids at a resort or just a lavish online learning experience? Inside of Higher Ed wrote a critical piece about it, titled "Bursting Their Buble".   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by The U Experience (@theexperienceu)  

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Saturday, November 22, 2025

Education technology today is marked by rising AI adoption among educators and innovative personalized learning approaches.

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Saturday, November 22, 2025

AI is transforming the education technology landscape as more teachers adopt intelligent tools, driving forward and adaptive learning experiences.

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