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Students Earn MBA On Facebook

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The London School of Business and Finance has developed a Facebook application to host course material, video lectures and student discussions.

"Students access all of the study materials absolutely free of charge, and we're talking about hundreds of hours of rich media content with high definition videos, with interactive case studies and quite a lot of really high quality material," said Valery Kisilevsky, Managing Director for the London School of Business and Finance.

The program, which cost the school twelve million dollars to develop, only charges students once they decide to get certified and move toward accreditation in their field of study. So far, the freemium business model has attracted plenty of "fans."

"The response has been overwhelmingly positive with thirty-thousand users," said Kisilevsky.

Chief Executive Officer Aaron Etingen added "That's by the way more than the top 100 business schools worldwide. In a week we gave bigger access than the entire top-ranked business schools."

Prospective students must "like" the school's page to gain access to course material. And while some say it sounds like a gimmick, the founders call it a long-term investment.

We are quite confident that with five-hundred million students on Facebook that the conversion to students that choose to get certified would be in line with our expectations and would make this a viable venture."

And give students one good reason to spend more time on Facebook.

Reported by: Nicole Brewer, CBS 3

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