Online Education is a Prestige Problem

Is there any chance you wouldn't jump at the chance to hire this guy? (http://www.technologyreview.com/news/428610/in-the-olympics-...)

In some fields the prestige of the institution will be directly related to how well it separates excellence from mediocrity. TopCoder does this. Online classes are beginning to do this.

I agree that there are many valuable aspects to physical universities that cannot be replicated online, but this point about prestige is weak.