I think education at a great University provides primarily four benefits:
1. Great instructor-driven education
2. Great student peer-group-- folks that are truly smarter than you and teach you to think in ways you hadn't imagined (and those you pay attention to, because they might someday change the world)
3. Great networks/connections and maybe even a brand
4. An opportunity to immerse in great research.
I think online education courses do a great job of approximating 1. They sort of try to do 2. And they fail at 3.
I don't point this out to say "yes, online ed. could change higher learning forevermore" or "no, this is a flash in the pan", but to highlight that traditional Universities do have a role-- they may simply be a place where people watch online videos and build stuff together, but they add value beyond a guy in his den watching a video (to be poetic predictions of the death of traditional learning are greatly exaggerated).
e.g. As a Stanford student, (1) above is certainly lowest on my list of great-things-Stanford-provides. (2) is high, and so is infrastructure. On (4), I think the Gates building has a astoundingly high great-ideas/sq-m. None of these can be replicated online easily.
But not all colleges and universities are at the same level as Stanford. The idea is to provide higher quality education to a larger group of people who might not otherwise not be able to receive it.
As you state, this cannot replace the benefit of putting a whole bunch of smart and motivated people in close physical proximity, but can complement other programs or help other students achieve a better education then would otherwise be possible.
1. Great instructor-driven education 2. Great student peer-group-- folks that are truly smarter than you and teach you to think in ways you hadn't imagined (and those you pay attention to, because they might someday change the world) 3. Great networks/connections and maybe even a brand 4. An opportunity to immerse in great research.
I think online education courses do a great job of approximating 1. They sort of try to do 2. And they fail at 3.
I don't point this out to say "yes, online ed. could change higher learning forevermore" or "no, this is a flash in the pan", but to highlight that traditional Universities do have a role-- they may simply be a place where people watch online videos and build stuff together, but they add value beyond a guy in his den watching a video (to be poetic predictions of the death of traditional learning are greatly exaggerated).
e.g. As a Stanford student, (1) above is certainly lowest on my list of great-things-Stanford-provides. (2) is high, and so is infrastructure. On (4), I think the Gates building has a astoundingly high great-ideas/sq-m. None of these can be replicated online easily.