by Jordan Weissmann, the Atlantic
If U.S. colleges and universities are ever going to bring down their costs, it means that one day they’re going to have to buck up and embrace online learning as regular tool for teaching undergrads. Babson Survey Research Group has released its latest poll tracking attitudes about online education within academia, and as in past years, it’s evidence of a big split between administrators, a large portion of whom see the web as key to the future, and professors, who are mostly suspicious. On the whole, 69 percent of the academic leaders who were interviewed agreed that online learning would be “critical” the long-term plans of the school, up from around half a decade ago. Whereas administrators are growing more enthusiastic about the web–or at least coming to terms with its importance–professors still seem to be on the fence. Only 32 percent of the academic officers polled said their faculty “accepted the value and legitimacy of online education.” That figure hasn’t changed much in eight years. The vast majority are still “neutral” on the issue.
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