The facilities they provide and professors that they are hire are among the best in the world.  Those things are not cheap.They need donations to provide the free education.  This, the free education, costs them money to produce and host.Don't also forget that MIT went against the will of the rest of the top universities in being the first one to initially provide this free education.  They effectively coerced other top universities to do the same.  They are doing for the benefit of society.####[['facilities', 'Teaching_Setup', 'POS'], ['professors', 'Instructor', 'POS'], ['education', 'Course_General_Feedback', 'POS'], ['MIT', 'Course_General_Feedback', 'POS']]