With a MOOC the costs and barriers to entry are alot lower than for college education. One would hope that this enables people to 'shop around' a bit more, finding something they are actually interested in - which is one important part of motivation. The quality of the lectures available can also be much higher, e.g. I can see and follow what top professors in the field are up to regardless of geographic or other access problems. Over time, I also hope for a bit more specialization - instead of mostly Phd/professors wanting to do research having mandatory lectures, we'll have more people passionate about teaching itself.

Not that there aren't challenges as well...