Hi Vinay,

I founded the Interaction Design Foundation so perhaps I can help you answer that question. Let me try to be as unbiased and objective as possible:

Our whole mission statement revolves around making design education accessible to anyone with a laptop. Cost is one of the most important deciding factors for a student from a developing country who wants to learn and improve his/her career. We've written an article about the Return on Investment (ROI) on the different options of design education available. You can read about ROI of Design Education here

If you aren't familiar with the Interaction Design Foundation, I found a couple of external reviews on Google that talk about both our mission and the courses we offer:

Sérgio Haruo's review of the Interaction Design Foundation

Uxer Girls' Review of the Interaction Design Foundation

Jennifer Arlington's review of the Interaction Design Foundation

UXMastery's review of the Interaction Design Foundation

UXPin's review of the IxDF

I hope you will find them useful. You're also welcome to write back (or write directly to me) if you have questions.

I wish you all the best in learning design !

Very best,

Mads

In my opinion, it is worth the price :) The course quality is great. One course includes videos, slides, and quiz which you can answer only once (I hate that).

As for the discussion group, I haven't participate much with the community. Therefore, I couldn't tell you about this.