by Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
I think it is quite possible that one hundred or more schools in the U.S. News rankings will find their enrollments or at least their tuition revenue streams cut in half or more within twenty years. They will be shells of their former selves, though on-line education might not even be their major economic challenge. It will be one of three or four major whammies facing them. Higher education as a general practice of course still will thrive, as will community colleges. One key question is whether on-line education will encourage consolidation or not. Under one vision, on-line offerings shore up the smaller schools, because you can go to them for the atmosphere while taking German III purely on-line. (Even then, they survive but the revenue stream takes a huge whack.) Under another vision, on-line — for most students — works best in hybrid form, mixed with various face-to-face forms, and the larger schools will have a much easier time getting this off the ground in a workable manner.
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