> Online courses have been around for years and they all still suck.
I think this is ultimately a subjective thing, I don't really think something like CompSci (a subject most here studied) needs to be on a campus based lecture basis, but I can see why someone who needs more 'hand-holding' and wants the campus life experience would say this.
I was in an actual Science major, Biology, where your physical presence is needed for lab work as so much of it is just repeating your work (and ideally know why it failed) as experiments fail so often--the experiments are actually incredibly archaic and way far behind the Industry standards, where so much of it is actually outsourced for a reason. So watching youtube videos on distillations and titrations is just about as useful as you will never actually do that in a lab, as its a waste of man-power/labour costs. Reagents and precursor molecules are never going to be made in house by anyone, you buy them like you do bio-markers, so why bother wasting an undergrad student's time making them do it instead of teaching them how to use more modern apparatuses that are actually used in the Industry? I thin it's because that's what grad school is ultimately for and for that you have to 'pay to play' as it were.
The lectures and exams for my major, however, should have been entirely Online in my opinion; we had mainly tenured Post-docs doing research teaching our classes which was always a f'ing nightmare as you could tell they were only doing it out of obligation. The one saving race being that they did give hints as to what was on the exam when you attended which could save you hours/days of overstudying if all you did was just look at the book/slides, so I ended up creating a study group with 5 other students where we alternated going to lecture and recording it and then uploading online so we could follow along with the slides and book at home as most of us had to work. This should be the standard! Because the truth is there is simply no way to cover 7 chapters for a midterm for 3-5 lectures plus quizzes on various subjects, plus lab practicals for each one every semester and have any chance of passing those courses, and then on top of that they think you're going to retain even 20% of that information?!
It's the optimized pump-dump model of rote-learning that they're really 'teaching' which is why so many recent-grads are almost entirely useless if/when they get to the Industry for the first year or so. They're being mis-led about the expectations and working conditions of the roles they're going to fill, which is also probably why so few actually end up in the Industry they studied for.
Some of my best professors openly discussed in private how the models is incredibly broken, some even going so far as to say they wish they could get rid of the grading system entirely as its not a very good gauge as they admitted all they are really gauging is how good you are at repeating what was said to you back them without having much room for interpretation or nuance in the discussion, there is simply no time for it given all the constraints. Which incidentally is what the Scientific Model is actually operating on: self-regulating system that questions and even tries to defy conventional wisdom at every step to arrive to a viable conclusion and the cycle repeats itself never really having a 'definitive' of answer, simply a better one than the previous one. And the reality is, no one really replicates any of the peer reviewed journals and its well-documented that they do not, even outside of Academia.
I'll agree that Online learning has some disadvantages but the trade-offs are worth it, and the alternative is remaining with this perversely bloated form of indentured servitude for the benefit of very few that is gamed by those who have the means and resources to do so, be it in Enrollment or even within it.
I learned to code, albeit not very well, almost entirely from Online sources be it Coursera/Udemy for the basics, and then Stackoverflow for my questions on why things didn't work but it was enough to be able to create a fintech startup, the first of it's kind in fact, where as CTO I ultimately ended up outsourcing the work needed to better developers and I focuses on product development, UX and sales. I learned about Bitcoin/Blockchain from my deep interest in the subject of economics and Anarchist philosphy that spanned decades, which was mainly taught from Online sources and epub books. I ended up at IBM that way and saw very quickly how grad students from illustrious universities in 'blockchain like disciplines' could barely grasp something that I understood very well from my first year involved in the Bitcoin Community where we had amazing developers and cryptologists openly having conversations with anyone interested on the subject about how this tech worked and what its goals were in a complicated, but entirely comprehensible level if you were motivated enough to want to do some legwork to understand.
I think you're making a blanket statement which is more a reflection of you as an individual, as it really just depends on what subject you're studying.
For example: I went back to school for Supply Chain and Logistics and Business/Warehouse Data Analytics (most of these are Master level courses) in order to update my CV but I have already worked for several Automotive Multi-nationals in the past in this sector, so I know what actually works and what is just fluff to pad the course out to the 10-15 week requirements (depending on quarter vs semester, as I've done both) and there is 100% no reason why any of it should be done in person, at all.
I really mean no benefit of it what so ever, in fact I'd go so far as to say that if it had like designated Online office hours/chat/video conference you could sign up for and have it posted in the internal forum/discussion board for future review it would be a superior model to that of University at a fraction of the cost. I'd even pay extra for those features just so I don't have to make the effort to be somewhere during the day and choose to finish a course at my own pace in my extra time.