Zvi Galil, OMSCS - The Best Degree Program Ever?

Content

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Zvi Galil

Speaker

Zvi Galil (Georgia Tech)

Abstract

In May 2013, Georgia Tech together with its partners, Udacity and AT&T, announced a new online master’s degree in computer science delivered through the platform popularized by massively open online courses (MOOCs). This new online MS in CS (OMSCS) costs less than $7,000 total, compared to a price tag of $40,000 for an MS CS at comparable public universities and upwards of $70,000 at private universities. The first-of-its-kind program was launched in January 2014 and has sparked a worldwide conversation about higher education in the 21st century. President Barack Obama has praised OMSCS by name twice, and hundreds news stories mentioned the program. It’s been described as a potential “game changer” and “ground zero of the revolution in higher education”. Harvard University researchers concluded that OMSCS is “the first rigorous evidence showing an online degree program can increase educational attainment” and predicted that OMSCS will single-handedly raise the number of annual MS CS graduates in the United States by at least 7 percent.

OMSCS started in 2014 with 5 courses and 380 students; in the spring of 2026 semester it had 46 courses and almost 18,500 students. OMSCS is apparently the biggest academic program in the world in any subject, not necessarily online. So far 16,500 students have graduated from OMSCS, over 7,000 in the last 3 years. The number of applications to OMSCS keeps rising. In the 2024-25 academic year there were 9,860 applications, 31% higher than the record in the year before. The program has also paved the way for more than 50 similar programs in over 30 universities. In November 2023, a Forbes article described OMSCS as the best degree program ever. There has been a big shortage of computing professionals in the US. Therefore, OMSCS is satisfying a great national need. Starting in 2017, Georgia Tech expanded its online offerings to undergraduate computer science students. The talk will describe the OMSCS program, how it came about, its first twelve years, and what Georgia Tech has learned from the OMSCS experience. It will also discuss the speaker’s vision of the future of higher education with a much larger role for online learning.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Zvi Galil earned BS and MS degrees in Applied Mathematics from Tel Aviv University, both summa cum laude, and his PhD in Computer Science from Cornell University. After a post-doctorate in IBM’s Thomas J. Watson research center, he returned to Israel and joined the faculty of Tel-Aviv University, serving as chair of the Computer Science department in 1979-1982. In 1982 he joined the faculty of Columbia University, serving as the chair of the Computer Science Department in 1989-1994 and as Morris and Alma A. Schapiro Dean of The Fu Foundation School of Engineering & Applied Science in 1995-2007. In 2007 Galil returned to Tel Aviv University and served as president. In 2009 he resigned as president and returned to the faculty as a professor of Computer Science. In July 2010 he became The John P. Imlay, Jr. Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech. In June 2019 he stepped down as dean and became the Frederick G. Storey Chair in Computing and Executive Advisor to Online Programs.

Dr. Galil was a moving force behind the establishment of Georgia Tech’s online masters in computer science (OMSCS), which by Fall 2025 had grown to almost 17,000 students representing more than 100 countries. Inside Higher Education noted that OMSCS “suggests that institutions can successfully deliver high-quality, low-cost degrees to students at scale.” The Chronicle of Higher Ed noted that the OMSCS “may have the best chance of changing how much students pay  for a traditional degree.”

Dr. Galil’s research areas have been the design and analysis of algorithms, complexity, cryptography and experimental design. He has written over 200 scientific papers, edited 5 books, and has given more than 250 lectures in 30 countries.

In 2008, Columbia  University established the Zvi Galil award for student life. In 2009, the Columbia Society of Graduates awarded him the Great Teacher Award

In 2025 the Columbia Engineering Alumni Association awarded him the Michael Pupin Medal for service to the nation in science, technology, or engineering. The advisory board of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech raised over $2 million from over 130 donors to establish an endowed chair named after Galil.

Galil is a fellow of the ACM and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In 2012 he earned an honorary doctorate from the University of Waterloo Canada and in 2024 he earned one from Columbia University.