What is a digital diploma worth?
Jul 6th, 2004A nice piece at Mother Jones …
Last march, Arthur Levine, the president of Columbia University's Teachers College, predicted in a New York Times op-ed article that information technology may soon make the traditional brick-and-mortar university obsolete. With schools facing growing pressure to reduce costs and with students increasingly demanding the convenience and flexibility associated with "a utility company, supermarket, or bank," Levine pointed to online education — the delivery of courses, even full-fledged degrees, via the Internet — as a natural solution.
"It is possible right now for a professor to give a lecture in Cairo, for me to attend that lecture at Teachers College, and for another student to attend it in Tokyo," explained Levine. "If we can do all of that, and the demographics of higher education are changing so greatly, why do we need the physical plant called the college?"
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