by David Wortman

Created on: June 02, 2008   Last Updated: July 07, 2010

Can Brick and Mortar Colleges Compete with Distance Learning?

Distance or online learning seems to have exploded overnight, thanks to the World Wide Web. During the fall of 2007 a survey found the following: Almost 3.5 million students were taking at least one online course; nearly ten percent increase over the number reported the previous year. The 9.7 percent growth rate of online enrollments far exceeds the 1.5 percent growth of the education student population. Nearly 20 percent of all U.S. higher education students were taking one online class 2006. (Sloan-c, Index)

It is these statistics that lead to the topic of this paper: how can the traditional brick and mortar schools compete against the online education systems?

Of course, distance learning is not really a new concept. Correspondence schools, a form of distance learning, have been around for many years. However, before the arrival of the World Wide Web correspondence schools mailed class material to the student who completed the work and mailed it back to the school. (New World Dictionary, 1984) In essence these courses were a form of independent study, learning with little in the way of interaction between student and instructor. These types of schools were suspect as to their academic rigor and in their assessment of the student, leading to the belief that the student bought the degree or grade with little proof of learning. Today, the concepts of distance or online courses are suffering under similar questions.

One such criticism was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
The results of several surveys of those who evaluate potential employees and make hiring decisions show a bias against online degrees" "online education conjures up images of those spam messages that promise a Ph.D. in exchange for $5,000 and a bit of life experience." "The employers who are more skeptical of online education is the ones who seem to know the least about it." (Carnevale, 2007)

It is from these and others surveys that the traditional college received a boost in competition.

The questions about online education compared to traditional education really revolve around the issue of what is the purpose of education? In the article "Four Alternative Futures for Education in the United States" Sternburg (2004) looked at the question of what is the purpose of education. He asked just what is it we want our students to learn. Do we expect our students to be walking encyclopedias being

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