Should College Go Online?

An anonymous reader writes "The Atlantic has a story about the slow pace of technological innovation in higher education, highlighting the reluctance of many universities to take parts of their curriculum online. '[L]ack of funding isn't the only reason that the traditional universities and colleges aren't responding with their own strategic acquisitions. In all industries it's hard to convince successful incumbents that innovations at the low end of the market really matter. That was true even for Sony's Akio Morita, whose top executives didn't like his Walkman, which had no recording capability; it seemed smarter to focus on more-sophisticated products for the high end of the consumer electronics market. Regard for tradition and academic freedom make it particularly hard to undertake apparently low-quality innovations in higher education. But that's true to varying degrees in all industries. Whether the business is computers chips or steel, successful incumbents have difficulty responding to disruptive technologies, often until it's too late.'"

Comments

College is more than listening to a lecture.

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

The best thing you get out of college, if you go to a good one, is not merely learning from the occasional great mind and a bunch of above mediocre minds.

It's that you are surrounded by brilliant people from dozens of fields. They are your community. Sometimes the professors--depending on how much the school emphasizes teaching as opposed to research--but mostly the students. The students you meet at a great college are more intelligent than almost everyone else you will meet in your lifetime.

It's great for networking, too.

Re:College is more than listening to a lecture.

[cervesaebraciator]

I couldn't agree more--and one of the courses I teach is online so I'm not speaking in the abstract here. You can take something as simple as helping a student learn to write a better argument during office hours. Such a thing cannot occur online and online chat is no substitute. I can tell so much more about where and how students needs help when I talk with them in person. Most importantly, I am a human being to them and they are human beings to me. I am someone who cares about them, inspires them, pisses them off, or bores them. They encourage me, irritate me, depress me, or make me more optimistic about the future. Human contact is a prerequisite to the very human growth that accompanies these experiences.