“A very large number of public universities are experimenting with how online delivery can increase quality and contain costs,” said M. Peter McPherson, the president of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. “Using MOOCs for a low-cost graduate degree certainly crosses a threshold,” but, he added, so does Virginia Tech’s practice of teaching freshman math through self-paced online courses with lower costs and better outcomes. “We’re going to see more online learning,” he said, “but not one single absolute model.”

The three leading MOOC providers, Udacity, Coursera and edX, have grown at a remarkable rate, adding hundreds of courses with dozens of college and university partners. But the path ahead is less clear, and all three are working with universities to find ways in which their courses can be used for credit. Some state universities, leery of ceding control to outside organizations, lean toward developing their own programs and platforms.

For-profit colleges like the University of Phoenix, whose tuition generally falls between state institutions and private not-for-profit universities, were the first to offer large online degree programs. But for-profit enrollment has declined because of the recession, increased government scrutiny and Congressional hearings finding that their students had low graduation rates and high loan default rates. And with so many traditional institutions now offering online degrees, the for-profit colleges may have a tougher time attracting students.

Many public universities have recently expanded online degree programs costing as much as their on-campus programs. But if the Georgia Tech program attracts thousands of students — a big if — that pricing model may be vulnerable.

“Online is a scale game, so the Georgia Tech thing is interesting,” said Phil Regier, executive vice provost of Arizona State University Online, which takes in $90 million annually in revenue. “What we’re seeing is different price points for different levels of faculty involvement. If you want no touch, or very little touch, they’ll deliver that for $6,000. If you want a higher-touch program, taught and graded by regular faculty, with a lot of faculty interaction, it’s going to be more expensive.”

Mr. Regier said he did not know whether Georgia Tech’s model would succeed.

“What I do know is that if they attract 5,000 students, I don’t want to be doubling down on our computer science master’s program,” he said. “You have to know your market.”

The Florida Legislature has directed the University of Florida to start fully online bachelor’s degree programs and set the price for residents at three-quarters of the campus in-state tuition, or about $4,700. But Bernie Machen, the university’s president, said he had not yet decided whether to charge out-of-state online students the full $28,000 tuition they would pay on campus, in part because he wondered if online pricing models were changing.