Class Is in Session! Airlines Are Bringing College to Seatbacks Near You

JetBlue and Virgin America now offer college courses and academic learning material as part of their in-flight entertainment programs.

In a bid to smarten up their in-flight entertainment, some carriers are now offering passengers a selection of audio and video lectures covering a range of topics.

JetBlue Airways began streaming pre-recorded lectures in December 2014, and so far, its offerings include marketing classes from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, an archaeology class from Brown University, and an introduction to guitar and rhythm from the Berklee School of Music.

Complimentary for all passengers, these classes are shown as excerpts of full courses that are made available through Coursera, a platform for massive open online courses (MOOCs).

In addition to its academic offerings, JetBlue also features culinary lessons provided by online cooking school Rouxbe.

JetBlue, however, isn’t the only carrier offering in-flight courses. Earlier this month, Virgin America began offering content from The Great Courses library, which features recorded lectures from high-profile academics.

Current topics include “The Inexplicable Universe: Unsolved Mysteries” by Neil deGrasse Tyson and “What is Big History?” by Professor David Christian of Macquarie University in Australia.

Both JetBlue and Virgin plan to rotate their offerings every month or two.

While knowledge might be power, it’s not always free. The excerpts shown to passengers are teaser content from Rouxbe and The Great Courses — both of which charge for the full-length versions of their lectures.

If the programs prove to be popular, other carriers will likely announce educational content alliances of their own, enabling passengers to enrich and expand their minds — if only for the duration of their flight.

[Photo: Virgin America]