The simple truth is that nobody has figured out...

“The simple truth is that nobody has figured out how to build a cheap, high-quality online university. Not even close. So far, the biggest investments in Internet education have come from the for-profit sector, and their results have been, to put it lightly, lacking. For-profit graduates have worse job prospects and earn less than their peers who attend nonprofit schools. A new study released this week suggests that many for-profit diplomas are literally worthless in the marketplace. This even holds true when you control for student characteristics like wealth. And so perhaps not surprisingly, their alums are responsible a disproportionate fraction of student loan defaults. Worse yet, these schools are expensive. According to the most recent Department of Education statistics, the median net price of attending a for-profit bachelor’s degree program is almost $21,000 year, compared to about $10,000 at a public institutions and around $19,000 at private not-for-profits. A year at the University of Phoenix’s Tulsa campus ran students $25,987 in 2009-2010, up more than 7 percent from 2008-2009. This isn’t just a matter of these schools reaping large profits. Even with the efficiencies of the internet, education is still a labor-intensive endeavor. Unless your degree program consists of nothing but multiple choice tests that can be graded via computer, you still need instructors who can grade assignments, supervise in-class discussions (even if those discussions happen in a chat room), and help lagging students with the material.”

Business - Jordan Weissmann - Why the Internet Isn’t Going to End College As We Know It - The Atlantic