This is an important point you are making.
I remember a couple of decades ago thinking the future would go like this: Colleges offer courses online and the students would never have to go to the “brick and mortar” facility at all. They would have direct access to the teachers there and take their paid courses online, perhaps with live lectures online as well as live, in-person interviews with their professor.
But it’s not happening that way. Instead, we are all getting the best of the best in podcasts, youtube videos, etc. as well as the written material offered for free all over the internet. And unlike a live lecture, you can stop, rewind and repeat a youtube video or podcast. And don’t forget all those videos showing how the physical world works with very clear video presentations using computer graphics. It’s how I learned, in ridiculous detail, how a torque converter on a car works.
So, we now end up with a legion of people with huge, but also uneven, knowledge in various fields just from their exposure on the internet and no shingle to prove they know anything. Yet they do.
So, in a way it’s a LOT better for the students or those that want to acquire this knowledge from truly experienced teachers, but it also creates uneven and unreliable results. The good news is that those that truly do learn and have the aptitude can percolate to the surface through competitions, internships, etc.
The brick and mortar university is a dead paradigm walking.
One can only hope it is so. I remember trying to schedule classes I needed around my works hours.
It seems as though all higher education facilities have a perverse way of setting up classes to make it nearly impossible for one to put together a schedule that makes sense for real people.
Being able to review a class online at any time of day (or night) and do, and submit, homework online at your leisure is the future (I hope)...