Reading Zephyr Teachout’s dire warning in her article in this morning’s Washington Post (it appeared in Slate earlier in the week) that online education will eventually take over almost all of higher education if we don’t do something about it — now — I couldn’t help but remember my experience visiting the IBM pavilion at the World’s Fair in Flushing, NY, in 1964. Ms. Teachout, associate professor of law at Fordham, is knowledgeable, and clearly worried about the future of higher education. She’s also very smart. Nevertheless, she would do well to remember that predictions about where human beings are headed are inherently problematic.
In 1964, I was a young girl longing to see Michelangelo’s Pieta (sorry, I can’t figure out how to insert accents in this blog), which had been shipped with great fanfare from the Vatican to Flushing for the World’s Fair. I got to see it — bathed in blue light, protected by bulletproof glass, viewed from a slowly moving conveyer belt. Hardly perfect conditions, but I was thrilled. Afterwards, my parents dragged me over to see the IBM pavilion.
Back then, the three letters, “IBM” stood for the future. I remember waiting on line for what seemed like an eternity, after which we shuffled into an auditorium to watch a short film celebrating — well, duh, IBM. While we watched the film, one of those stentorian voices that sounded like God and IBM rolled into one assured us that in the not-to-distant future we’d all be riding about in little capsules that would hover a foot over the ground, swallow tiny white pills for dinner, possess vacuum cleaners that would quietly clean the house on their own, live without disease, and be forever smiling in our tight and tiny nuclear families in our tight and forever wonderfull problem-free America. (The voice didn’t exactly say all this, but the implications were clear.)
Surprise, this turned out to be wrong. As wrong as Ms. Teachout’s warning inevitably must be. Predictions about the way things will be in 50 years — or even five, or one, for that matter — are seldom right. Moreover, in modern times they tend to reflect a particularly modern curse: A tendency to forget the Ecclesiastian truth that time and chance happeneth to all.
But if Ms. Teachout is right that higher ed is heading toward a world where higher ed is mostly distance learning — what are its advocates waiting for? Why not cut to the chase and work to turn on-site secondary education into distance learning, or even abolish grammar schools in favor of computers in the home? If we want our kids to end up sitting alone in isolated little rooms when they’re 18 and 20, staring at computer screens instead of facing other real human beings, thinking in a way that turns thought into nothing but bits of information, why not start training them earlier? We could insert them into comfortable little cocoons in their homes from the age of, oh, say seven.
Those who embrace distance learning as a reasonable substitute for students going to college argue their case in the name of efficiency and productivity. In permitting business goals to become education goals, educators have permitted the business world to have a say in how we educate the young. And make no mistake about it: They believe that whatever is best for business is best for human beings.
I say to hell with efficiency and productivity if it means any more distance learning than we already have. What’s the point of living if we all turn into robots? People need to watch Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece, Metropolis. There human beings were about as efficient and productive as one could possibly imagine. For distance learning advocates who don’t know this film, or insist they don’t have the time to watch it, I have another suggestion: Google the word, “dystopia.”
32 Responses to The Dystopia of Distance Learning
ajay_jetti - September 13, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Yes, you are right, it would lead to more mechanization (of people) than it is needed.But then, business and world in general are moving towards some optimizations which aim to bring the best “utility” out of everything, how can we set standards as to how far something should be allowed to taught without ruining the “experience” of students/people in general? Can we really have such standards, because the standards are invisible? Will people accept them?
suomynona - September 13, 2009 at 6:29 pm
1) Often it is needed for people to perform mechanical tasks. And learning often requires repetition. But that’s different than mechanizing people (which is *never* needed, and, in my view, immoral) or taking the social aspects out of learning.2) Learning through face-to-face interaction and discussion are about much more than the ‘experience’ of learning. Likewise, providing these benefits to students do more than simply give them a nice ‘experience.’ 3) If it aims to ‘bring the best utility out of everything’ that doesn’t necessarily make it an ‘optimization.’
ramesh1 - September 13, 2009 at 11:40 pm
I think this is a good omen that Internet is ready to teach higher learning.Remote part of world where there is no facilities of higher education, Internet is best medium for learning, One advantage of Internet this medium is giving facilities to ask questions, can allow you to express your idea,mutual com munition. Man learn more by mutual com munition than passive learning.Iam Living obscures part of world Internet is boon to me
jdhaight - September 14, 2009 at 7:14 am
While Distance Learning remains an attractive alternative to students whose obligations preclude their physical attendance, I hope we all keep in mind that college represents the first educational experience unmediated by parental and societal retraint.It is often the first truly free exchange of ideas a student experiences. Given the choice between physical classroom presence and asynchronous convenience, I hope we continue to emphasize the former.There is no experience quite like live discussion in a classroom of peers.
wheeler1 - September 14, 2009 at 7:56 am
I’m sorry to report that distance ed is in fact very much seeping into high school. There are plenty of high schools including the one in my district that have approved plans to phase in distance ed. The official rationale is so that students can be prepared for distance ed classes in college, but the real reason is because they think it can somehow save money by shortening the school day. Just what we need – teenagers with more unsupervised afternoon hours! That’s when teen become invovlved in drugs and become pregnant – buy hey if it can justify the school administrator’s raise with a plan that looks like they are taking advantage of innovative technology. The problem is that there is not enough awareness about it so by the time the expensive distance ed contract is paid, it will be too late to backtrack.
eelalien - September 14, 2009 at 8:19 am
My, my…talk about “Chicken Little” syndrome! Anyway, some f2f educators could better retain their captive classroom audiences if they bothered to learn that not everyone wants to hear their voice drone on for three hours. And asynchronous online discussions can be just as rewarding as “live discussion in a classroom of peers”, because the content is the same – it is only the medium that has changed.
debrahumphreys - September 14, 2009 at 8:53 am
I couldn’t agree more. And advocates of online learning keep conflating two different things–information delivery/transfer (easy to do online) and actual education (much harder to do, if not impossible, exclusively online).
robert_wyatt - September 14, 2009 at 9:01 am
I really can’t understand the point the author is trying to make. Perhaps she could drop by my house and explain it F2F.
jsalmons - September 14, 2009 at 9:27 am
Wow! What negativity! As an educator who has taught college face-to-face and graduate school for an all-online school for a decade, my perspective is 360 degrees from the writer. I argue distance learning in terms of one-one tutorial style respected since the tradition started at Oxford, combined with rich opportunities for peer learning and exchange. Our communications are primarily in writing– so they are learning to communicate in writing. Since when do academics find the written word insufficient? I wish Dr. Fendrich could take one of my classes, and discover that these new approaches to education are not so scary.
raymondmrose - September 14, 2009 at 10:03 am
Just like with on-ground education there are really good and some not so great distance education programs. I doubt that all the writers insisting that distance education is inherently inferior to on-ground instruction would say that all on-ground instruction is great. If I were to selectively talk about the poor on-ground instruction as if it represented all on-ground instruction it would be easy to say how “truely bad” on-ground instruction is.Those who believe distance education provides an inferior educational experience are of course, ignoring the recent report from the Dept of Education that reports online education to be equal to, or better than on-ground instruction. And the quality online programs that I’m familiar with, don’t create the programs to save money, they do it to provide more students with a high quality education. If you think on-ground education works for everyone — then why are the drop-out rates in this country so high. That’s in high schools, community colleges, and 4-year college programs?
cgodin - September 14, 2009 at 10:06 am
I will cautiously admit that true distance learning is great for some graduate studies and certainly a boon to those who are truly in a disadvantageous situation, geographically. However, it is a bill of goods for too many who are lulled (as they were with telecourses) into thinking they can go at their own pace, not have to get up early, don’t need to see the professor. Too many undergrads are not ready to accept the responsibility and/or have an inflated idea of their computer skills. At my institution we have several hybrid classes–it provides the students with the face to face and online experience as well as maximizing precious classroom facility usage. In these days of measuring outcomes, let’s take a hard look at retention and success before we completely embrace this concept.
joeerwin - September 14, 2009 at 10:08 am
In my opinion, the greatest value of higher education is the development of active learning; that is, learning how to learn.Unfortunately, many who are awarded degrees are largely passive learners, but those who learn to actively engage and take responsibility for learning gain lifelong rewards. However one gains competence in accessing and evaluating information is worthwhile. It is the competence that matters more that the method by which it is gained. I suspect that the optimal circumstance is the blending of classroom, seminar, face-to-face/one-on-one, and other social campus situations with access to and use of library and electronic information resources (including electronic discussion opportunities). Learning styles vary dramatically across individuals, so the best blend for each person surely differs to some extent from what works for others. What worries me is the prohibitive cost of formal higher education and the questionable value of for-profit education, prestige education, and religious indoctrination, relative to affordable public education. I’m concerned that people are buying degrees without becoming well-educated or even well-qualified to become productive citizens.
goxewu - September 14, 2009 at 10:22 am
The fact that jsalmons, a distance-educator for a decade, read Prof. Fendrich’s article online, doesn’t understand it, and needs an in-the-flesh appearance by the author to help him get it speaks volumes about distance-learning.
haohtt - September 14, 2009 at 11:33 am
I am always amused when I see another opinion piece (or opinion poll) stating how inferior online learning is to face-to-face learning. Where are the data, or where is the body or research to support this opinion? It does not exist, despite 90 years of research into “mediated” versus “traditional” instruction conducted by advocates and opponents alike.Distance education will turn student into robots? No more than face-to-face education does. Anyone who has done even a cursory study of the educational system knows its role in shaping the thoughts, loyalties and politics of students.”advocates of online learning keep conflating two different things–information delivery/transfer (easy to do online) and actual education (much harder to do, if not impossible, exclusively online).” No, the problem is that those who are opposed to online learning have never been able to define fuzzy terms like “actual education”, “educational experience” or “magic in the classroom” in any coherent way that allows one to compare face-to-face to online learning.It would be refreshing to see ANYONE who could back up their opinions of “online learning is inferior” or “you can’t learn ___ online” with something other than empty declarative statements.
dallasm12 - September 14, 2009 at 11:43 am
Disconnect occurs on many levels. Even F2F teachers are challenged to connect with students. Distance is somewhat of an illusion. Even what we hear F2F has to travel past our ears, concepts, opinions, and cultural bias. Correspondence schools of the 19th century enabled the remote and home-bound to get an education. We don’t want to deprive others of the education they desire.
dank48 - September 14, 2009 at 11:44 am
Distance learning is relatively new and therefore not well understood, for good or ill. I know a student who takes some courses on line and others face-to-face. (And, really, “f2f” is a barbarism, as well as being deceptive. What is “face to face” about a lecture hall with hundreds of students who can barely see the lecturer’s face? Okay, maybe that’s one of those things that went away forty years ago.) Anyway, for some courses, such as lower-level math, distance learning works well. For others, I can’t imagine how it could. Same goes for students. I bet there are plenty of students who are as technophobic as any of us superannuated commentors. For a certain kid I know, on-line learning puts her at no disadvantage vis-a-vis hearing kids. And a properly set-up distance class beats the living hell out of a conventional class that, three weeks into the semester, the school still hasn’t been able to provide an interpreter for. All course work isn’t the same sort of stuff, any more than all students or all instructors are the same. I can’t imagine trying to teach someone how to paint via computer, any more than I can imagine teaching someone how to speak German correctly. And a classroom is probably more efficient for both. Still, new methods may suit some aspects of the field. Btw, did people stop painting in oils when artist-quality acrylics became available? No. Was anyone forced to use acrylics who preferred oils? No. But we smell somewhat less turpentine than we used to.
jruiz - September 14, 2009 at 11:58 am
” my perspective is 360 degrees from the writer.”I believe that would put you at the exact same point as the person you disagree with. Perhaps you meant 180 degrees?As for distance learning, at my institution it is strictly a revenue stream thing. Students pay $200 more per credit/hr than in an f2f situation. My bet is that in 25 years the only people to be found on camouses are administrators and athletes. There will be no need for faculty.
robert_wyatt - September 14, 2009 at 12:21 pm
“The fact that jsalmons, a distance-educator for a decade, read Prof. Fendrich’s article online, doesn’t understand it, and needs an in-the-flesh appearance by the author to help him get it speaks volumes about distance-learning.” goxewu – September 14, 2009 at 10:22 amActually that was me, also a distance-educator for a decade and I had just received a F2F lecture on the following: sarcastic, satiric, ironic, and sardonic; hence my comment. I do agree with jsalmons sentiment “Since when do academics find the written word insufficient?”. The Dystopia author communicated from a different place and at a different time to explain why one must be F2F to “learn”.
intered - September 14, 2009 at 1:41 pm
And so it goes . . . teaching under a calendar designed to support porato harvesting and with methods employed by our great-great grand professors. Shamefully ignoring the last 50 years of learning sciences while we make our living teaching from other sciences.
goxewu - September 14, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Oops! I did mistake robert_wyatt for jsalmons. But hey, it’s hard to tell the difference online.The Dystopia author did, indeed, communicate from a different place and at a different time to explain why one must be face-to-face (“F2F”? WTF?) to “learn.” I think Prof. Fendrich means to “learn” at a somewhat more elevated level than demonstrated by jsalmons or robert_wyatt. Sorry, no college credit. A refund might be available through PayPal, however.
goxewu - September 14, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Oops! I did indeed mistake robert_wyatt for jsalmons. But hey, they’re all alike online.And Prof. Fendrich did indeed employ distance-communication to convey the limitations of distance-learning. Those limitations are evident in the comments of jsalmons and robert_wyatt. Sorry, no college credit. Refunds might be available, however, through PayPal.
goxewu - September 14, 2009 at 2:46 pm
See what I mean? Through a techno-glitch, I handed in my bubble-test twice.
gmlimback - September 14, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Two comments jumped out to me in the discussion here: Dank48 stated: “Distance learning is relatively new and therefore not well understood, for good or ill.”Wheeler1 wrote, “I’m sorry to report that distance ed is in fact very much seeping into high school.”Both of these misconceptions are common in the ongoing banter about distance education. There is an unfortunate idea that DE began in the 1990s with the increasingly wide availability of the internet. Distance education has been alive and well and living in your neighborhood at least since the latter part of the 19th century. And, it has had a very active role in educating traditional high school students since at least 1926 here in the U.S. with supplementary, credit-bearing courses. So, DE is not “seeping into high schools.” In a very organized, formal manner it’s been there for a very long time already.The correspondence-based high school I work at was incorporated in 1897 as a non-profit educational institution and has educated more than 3 million students since then. There are other schools in the U.S. and in other parts of the world that are even older than mine offering high school courses for credit recovery, supplementary education, or diplomas. These well-established schools are fully accredited by their states and the regional accrediting bodies, just like a “regular” high school. Our graduates have gone on to your higher ed institutions, where they may actually outpace traditionally-educated students because of the independent-learning skills they developed as DE high school students, such as time management, organization, and follow-up. So as we continue to debate the issue of the validity of DE, let us please remember that it is NOT a new form of education. It might just be new to you.
11274135 - September 14, 2009 at 4:12 pm
I have been around long enough to see all sorts of educational innovations emerge, promise (or threaten) to take over all of education, and eventually find their place in the educational scheme of things. I imagine on-line instruction will follow pretty much the same pattern. What Frendrich is worried about is a larger problem with how we are all going to learn to get along with one another and develop some kind of civil society. A lot of the traditional structures that have promoted civility and civil society have deteriorated–churces, extended families, social clubs, all the Norman Rockwell things. The K-12 schools were intended to be and have been a pretty good social crossreads, even though there have been continual efforts to thwart this function. The college classroom is a place for learning but it has also been a great place for people to find out about one another up close and personal. The other students in an on line class are abstractions, either totally invisible or avatars created through language (on the internet no one knows that you’re a dog). Live students in live classes get in each other’s way in all kinds of ways, and that’s how we learn to get along with people who are different from us. This experience promotes both conflict and resolution. It’s good to learn physics and anthropology in college, but it’s also a great place to learn about people because it creates a critical crossraods situation that we otherwise can easily avoid.
11274135 - September 14, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I have been around long enough to see all sorts of educational innovations emerge, promise (or threaten) to take over all of education, and eventually find their place in the educational scheme of things. I imagine on-line instruction will follow pretty much the same pattern. What Frendrich is worried about is a larger problem with how we are all going to learn to get along with one another and develop some kind of civil society. A lot of the traditional structures that have promoted civility and civil society have deteriorated–churces, extended families, social clubs, all the Norman Rockwell things. The K-12 schools were intended to be and have been a pretty good social crossreads, even though there have been continual efforts to thwart this function. The college classroom is a place for learning but it has also been a great place for people to find out about one another up close and personal. The other students in an on line class are abstractions, either totally invisible or avatars created through language (on the internet no one knows that you’re a dog). Live students in live classes get in each other’s way in all kinds of ways, and that’s how we learn to get along with people who are different from us. This experience promotes both conflict and resolution. It’s good to learn physics and anthropology in college, but it’s also a great place to learn about people because it creates a critical crossraods situation that we otherwise can easily avoid.
dank48 - September 14, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Gmlimback is of course correct that distance learning, e.g. studying by correspondence, has been with us a long time. I was being pretty casual in using the term to mean on-line instruction. In the math class my daughter took last summer, the instruction backed up what was in the book and was remarkedly well-coordinated with the text. Further, the exercises gave instant feedback as to correctness or otherwise, and she had a chance to try in again. As mentioned, distance education has its place, whether we drop the lesson in the mail and wait a couple weeks or key the answers in and get feedback instantly. It isn’t going to go away, nor should it. From the standpoint of an amateur, it seems to me that there are two main things to consider. First, whether the subject matter, including various subdivisions thereof, is suitable for distance learning or is, rather, more effectively taught in a face-to-face setting. Anything requiring discussion, student “performance” and so on would seem to need the classroom setting. Second, whether the instructional “package” is well designed, and so on. There are, no doubt, abysmal distance learning efforts, just as–dare I say it?–there are abysmal classroom experiences and other imperfect instances of the traditional approach. One that comes to mind is a previous math text my kid used, which was prepared by people with a very shaky grasp of English, for starters, and not much better grasp of simple factual information. For example, an area-calculation problem containing “. . . if an acre contains 40,000 square feet . . .” could only have been prepared by someone who thought “acre” is something like “field,” which may be of any convenient size, rather than a standard unit of measure, 1/640 square mile, or 43,560 square feet. And a problem stating that a ship is traveling at “30 knots per hour” conveys the erroneous notion that “knot” is a unit of distance not speed. Traditional as you please, but wrong all the same.
dpn33 - September 14, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Learning styles meet teaching modes. If we respect that people learn in a variety of ways, shoving everything into the same delivery mode is a terrible disservice to learners. In high school my son discovered that distance ed did NOT work for him, even though he, his teachers, even school administrators, thought it would be a great solution to some thorny personal issues. For him, it did not work. For some, it’s a godsend. I hope (foolishly, perhaps) that finances do not turn out to be the final determinant of how students (at all levels) are taught.What am I thinking? That’s already the way it is. It’s why my middle schooler lost gym, and health class went from 2 quarters to one. Why so many schools have no athletic programs or music programs or other “frills.” How education operates is almost entirely a function of funding. So if distance ed truly is cheaper, I think many schools will find justifications of all sorts to choose to offer more and more courses remotely.
jsener - September 14, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Sorry, Laurie, but IMO your argument is a set of false dichotomies. Distance learning = business-oriented, efficiency-driven, computer-enslaved dystopia? Not really.Apparently you haven’t the story about a cohort of students in an online graduate education program some years ago who met for the first time in person at their graduation. It was like a reunion of long-lost friends – graduates in other campus-based programs looked around and wondered what all the noise was about — most of them didn’t have such close relationships with their fellow students. Which learning experience was more dystopian there?Or the post I just got the other day from an online teacher who invited his online students on a whim to a BBQ at his home last year. He didn’t expect any to show up, but he said that 89 did from all over the country. How dystopian is that?How ironic that the unstated alternative to distance learning, classroom instruction, was itself designed in part by efficiency experts inspired by Frederick Taylor who wanted a more efficient, productive method — uniform rows of seats, uniform information transmission, rote learning and assessment by regurgitation, etc. The method which inspired the Saturday Review cover in the early 1970s which showed a head with a faucet on top and a spout coming from the mouth. I’m sorry, which education method turns students into robots again?In the US classroom-based system, 20-30% of high school students routinely drop out before graduating, and large percentages of college entrants also fail to graduate. Now that sounds dystopian.Of course, one can move beyond the false dichotomies and recognize that it’s not an either/or choice. A learning experience can be online, in person, a combination, or by choice depending on student and/or teacher preference. Different modalities have their affordances — the examples above highlight face-to-face contact for a reason — and effective learning can be designed with these in mind instead of trying to pit one modality against another in a pointlessly irrelevant conflict.
joeerwin - September 14, 2009 at 7:17 pm
My siblings and I were homeschooled because we lived in a remote area far from the nearest school. We were taught by our mother under supervision from an accredited school system, and we used the curriculum and texts from that system. Neither of our parents nor our grandparents who lived nearby had graduated from high school. But everyone in the family read. We had substantial libraries in our homes. We also borrowed many books from the public library. Our parents frequently read to us by kerosene lamp as the whole family sat together in the evenings in our remote cabin. Mom took college courses in summer school. She also took college courses for credit from accredited correspondence schools. My sister did her first three years of high school by correspondence and then did her senior year at a boarding school, where she performed well. Mom took college courses for 16 years and graduated in the same class with my first wife. The registrar required that she take the GED to satisfy high school equivalancy before she could get her B.S., even though she had a cummulative GPA of 3.9 (out of 4). My sister went on to complete a masters degree and had a long and successful academic career. Mom taught elementary school very successfully for many years while taking courses and after finishing her degree. One of my aunts followed a similar pattern, graduating from college when she was 63. There are many ways of learning and each of us has distinct challenges. I continue to be very concerned that college be affordable to those who have very limited financial resources. One helpful approach, I think, would be to have “nodes” where those who cannot attend college full-time could have access to fast and reliable computers, on line or other remote instruction, and study leaders/instructors who could assist them and provide helpful F2F. I currently live in a rural county that has no college of any kind–aside from some AP courses taught in high schools by high school instructors for community college credit. There is a need here, and I’m sure in many other rural places (and perhaps urban and suburban places, too), for new blended approaches to education, especially for adults who are working or are otherwise unable to commute to college. Actually, we have enough professionally qualified people in this county to form a faculty. If only there were a program for us to plug into.
suomynona - September 14, 2009 at 9:25 pm
This is not meant to be a comment on the quality of this particular thread in any way, but what also worries me about online education is how simply being behind a computer allows people to be brash, inconsiderate, hyperbolic, vitriolic, and all sorts of other kinds of uncivil. In an online ‘classroom’ setting, of course, people wouldn’t be posting anonymously to discussion boards (I presume), and the fact that it’s a course for a grade and a diploma should mitigate some of the online nastiness that has become the hallmark of blogs and comment sections; but there is certainly something to be said for learning to get along in a real (read: material) classroom with human bodies in close proximity. I don’t think it’s all that airey-fairy or ambigious a concept either: it takes more courage (courage that often needs to be cultivated) to stand up in a civil manner to the opposing viewpoints of a person standing in front of you than it does to type a counterpoint in the confines of one’s bedroom alone; likewise it’s easier to learn how to most effectively get along with people in a civil society, amid discussion, when the people are actually present. After all, we’re not just talking about an innocent shifting of medium here; we’re talking about replacing one kind of socialization, which is actually oriented toward living and working and getting along with human beings in the material world, with another kind of socialization that seemingly underestimates or flat-out ignores the importance of the way things work, face to face, in the material world. Let’s not pretend that a medium bears no effect on the message.
goxewu - September 15, 2009 at 8:09 am
“…a cohort of students in an online graduate education program some years ago who met for the first time in person at their graduation. It was like a reunion of long-lost friends…an online teacher who invited his online students on a whim to a BBQ at his home last year. He didn’t expect any to show up, but he said that 89 did”This sounds to me like they were starving for some human interaction. Maybe if they’d been in class together, talking with each other and the professors… (And how come these online graduate programs are always in softer stuff, such as education, and not hard stuff, say physics?)
marcus704 - October 15, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Another good movie version of the vision of the future as “life by remote access” is at the beginning of “The Matrix” series, where Neo battles to excape from his ‘life at a distance’ pod. The catch for Neo is perhaps that he didn’t already know that he was in a pod. What will happen in the future? … will distance education keep growing till it “virtually” eliminates on campus. My guess would be “no”. Community and public colleges are cheaper and more efficient than the Ivy League, but the Ivy League has persisted. Cheaper more efficient cars have not eliminated heavier, more expensive ones. I think you could say that in the 1990s, SUVs almost took over the world, or at least the US roadways. I think on campus will be reduced by the competion from online, but will also improved by the competition. By the way, you can get degrees in Computer Science, Engineering, Informatics and a lot of other difficult areas online.