Sebastian Thrun, founder of Google X and the former project lead of Google Glass, started Udacity in 2011 to bring "university-level education to the world." But the lofty mission of his unaccredited for-profit online education racket is already dead, and Thrun just pulled in 35 million more investment dollars to promote his organization's "Nanodegrees."

A comprehensive study released today by the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education looked at a million users of MOOCs—"venture capital's massive, terrible idea" to democratize education—and found that roughly half the students who registered for one of those online courses ever saw a lecture. What's more, only about 4 percent completed the course.