The Chancellor’s New Robes: Online Education

Online education is being rapidly embraced as a cash cow for reputable universities. Although there are legitimate advantages to online learning, the data on learning outcomes are scarce. We point out the reasons why high quality, live classes are unlikely to be replaced by online alternatives. However, we do describe the poor teaching practices that can be inexpensively replaced by online courses. We finally point out that best practices and high quality online education are expensive and cannot generate the revenue expected by university administrators.