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they're called MOOCs massive open online courses and they might help college students save money and graduate faster the longer you stay the more you spend so this is a big huge problem with student debt approaching trillion dollars so online is a part of that solution for the first time students can enroll in a MOOC that's purely taught online and receive academic credit thanks to San Jose State plus a partnership between San Jose State University and tech startup Udacity instead of us standing back and just lecturing or 50 60 minutes the Udacity approaches to have an inquiry-based have the students constantly interacting with the material students watch short videos based on this scatterplot then take quizzes just take a guess this doesn't affect your grade you learn by making your brain go crazy you don't do anybody's listening the pilot program offers three entry level math classes costing a hundred and fifty dollars each much less than the roughly two thousand dollars it costs to take the class on campus classes are limited to veterans high school students and a few others going forward the hope is to open enrollment to anyone what we hope is that this will really help advance students in their ability to understand the mathematics master it and even become confident and excited in the past Udacity has had trouble with students dropping out of MOOCs so for this program there's a key addition mentors you will get the same level of attention you'd get normally in college the same number of hours and those will push you to be honest and they'll help you to be there for you when you get stuck a personal touch in a virtual classroom many hope that combination helps students and state universities alike in San Jose I'm Sumi das sina com for CBS News you