On Monday, the Washington Post took a look at the MIT program, which works with more than 150 other colleges and universities offering some 5,000 classes. About 35 million people have tried the school’s online courses, said MIT’s Steve Carson. The Post noted that “the biggest surprise has been that almost half who use the site aren’t students or teachers but people just curious to learn.”

Take a look at the Open Yale Courses site and the seven introductory courses to get a good flavor of what’s offered. The initiative is supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in Menlo Park, Calif. The foundation says it “seeks to use information technology to help equalize access to knowledge and educational opportunities across the world.”

We would be remiss if we didn’t point out that the rapid growth of broadband has opened up exciting learning opportunities well beyond the elite confines of MIT and Yale. A new report from Sloan Consortium and Babson Research shows that two-year associate’s institutions have the highest distance learning growth rates and “account for over one-half of all online enrollments for the last five years.” The 9.7 percent growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the 1.5 percent growth of the overall higher education student population, the report says.

The rise of global broadband technology is transforming education, once reserved for the privileged few, into a truly global, open environment. Says MIT professor Gilbert Strang: “My life is in teaching. To have a chance do that with a world audience is just wonderful.”