Traditional students rebelling against online education

[LongRoad]

About 20 years ago, I attended a graduation at a small, an extremely expensive college. One of the student speakers told of how, when she was very young, her father, a farmer, told her that if she wanted to go to college, she'd have to pay for it. The family simply couldn't afford it. She spoke of how she had to work as part of the financial aid, and all of the things she missed because of it. Further, she said that students SHOULDN'T have to work as part of the financial aid because of the school experiences that they missed, and the connections that couldn't be formed. I rolled my eyes.

Now? I think she had a point. There was a study done about the post-Civil War South. Within a very short period of time (a generation?) the same folks who were rich before the war had regained their financial footing. They had a history of wealth. They knew folks who had been rich. They knew how to be rich. (Hey, we can get folks to work at slave wages and NOT have to buy them!) The connections they had - in today's parlance, their network - brought them back to where they had been.

The folks you meet in college are often the folks that become your initial network. It's not the same on-line. While I think on-line courses, "testing out" etc. have their place in education, I do not think that they should replace the brick and mortar experience.