Chapter Summary: Will The Web Kill Colleges?

Will the Web Kill Colleges?
Emma Reece
MBA6004
June 7, 2014

In this passage the author is talking about how the web is being used vigorously by college students every day. He sees that colleges are losing their need to have classes in a classroom when they can take classes online from their homes. The cost of having a class in an actual classroom is costly. The colleges have to rent space to have the classes in then pay a professor to come into a room and teach the students in a normal classroom setting. Since the technology has upgraded so will colleges. The author sees that eventually colleges will have to cut costs with the educational government allowances being cut, they will have to
figure out a cheaper way to give a online degree. This means that not only will they offer cheaper tuitions because there will not be a classroom to go to, but there also will not be anymore dorm rooms for students to go to they can just live at home and get their degrees. With the cutting of the costs comes joining classes, they will take a class about as the author uses the French Revolution and combine a history class and a French History, therefore, cutting costs of the classes. On Google Scholar there is a Virtual College in place already called the Miami Dade college which offers classes from home virtually on the internet.
There are several degrees in this college that can be obtained online and never have to step foot into a classroom. I agree with this kind of education as I see it as not interfering with peoples home lives like going to a classroom does. You have to take time out to go to the class you have to have a sitter if you have kids, you have to use gas to drive there and back. With online classes you choose when you want to do the work it is just there for you to do it when it is convenient in a timely manner. The virtual classroom that he is talking about for college students is a great idea, and he sees it happening in ten to twenty years. This kind of online degree is great for some people, however, there is always problems with the internet and technological problems with broadcasting the classes online, as well as being able to submit your work. There is always a chance that there may be problems with the internet and it could be down, or storms passing that causes outages, etc. These become technological problems that in reality can cause a lot of problems in the
end. The authors proposal is that within the next 40 years if you are not a well known college and are not part of a large wealthy society than you will go to virtual education. The author sees that there are already a number of online courses and classes that you can take in your college degrees. Since the costs of classrooms, buildings, and professors are so high, and the government is cutting benefits to education all the time, the best alternative is to do the classes virtually online and have the professors teach from the luxury of their own homes as well as the students live at home and learn while living at home instead of dorm rooms that cost a fortune. The college tuitions can be dropped to one fourth of what they are now, if there was all online courses and degrees that were taught virtually. I see this happening eventually to everyone, because the cost of schools is going up, the interest on loans is going up and it costs so much to get a good education these days that there may be no other choice in the matter. The author 's vision brings about a lot of questions such as how can a person get a degree that has a hands on approach like nursing or engineer without stepping into a classroom to learn? The cost of college tuitions and dorm rooms are out of this world, however what kind of education will the virtual learner really get with a totally online degree?

References
Miami Dade College, 2013. http://www.mdc.edu/virtual/. June 7, 2014.
Durlach, N., Mavor, A. December, 1994. http://site.ebrary.com.library.capella.edu/lib /capella//docDetail.action?docID=10055298. June 7, 2014.