Imagine the potential ...

... MIT OpenCourseware. (Hat tip Gwen, who informs me that I am an Infoholic.)

So you can't get a degree, but you can take the courses, which means you can acquire the knowledge. So if you're somebody in a remote area of the Third World who happens to have computer access and, say, an aptitude for chemistry, you might just go farther than your circumstances might suggest.