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Comment by blackguardx | Hacker News Reader

Having taken online classes, I can say that they are no replacement for being in a classroom and having interaction with a teacher and classmates.

It would be a shame to see all education move online for purely cost reasons.

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Indeed. Book knowledge at universities is wonderful, but the value of the social experience cannot be understated. In some sense, one's classmates at a university form a giant fraternity. Stephen Leacock put this quite eloquently in "Oxford as I See It":

"If I were founding a university--and I say it with all the seriousness of which I am capable--I would found first a smoking room; then when I had a little more money in hand I would found a dormitory; then after that, or more probably with it, a decent reading room and a library. After that, if I still had money over that I couldn't use, I would hire a professor and get some text books."

Yes, but Oxford is still about learning (and suffering for it!) and far less about job training.

It won't. Lots of people agree with you, and demand for classroom and personal education is not likely to ever go away. Some significant restructuring of the system and how the money flows may be required, though, and a lot of wealth may get lost in the shuffle. (Colleges shutting down, buildings being left to rot, etc.)

I agree that face-to-face interaction between master and apprentice are critical for certain type of skill learning.

However, all memory based knowledge can all go online. Also, video and audio of lectures, homework assignments, etc. Much like MIT opencourse, UC Berkeley webcast.

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