Online educational programs may solve two core issues covered in College Insurrection posts:

•  The “Higher Education Bubble” of too much cost for college degrees and not enough return.
• The incessant indoctrination of students to progressive ideology.

This is the conclusion that noted American author and journalist Barry Casselman draws based on a recent talk given by Dr. Pete Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, at the Minnesota Association of Scholars.

Dr. Wood …was asked a question about the future of higher education. His answer included a comment about the possibility that the new institution of online higher education might be the only way to circumvent the entrenched faculty and administrative establishment, and restore higher education in America to its intended purpose and high standards.

As I listened to Dr. Woods remarks, it occurred to me that he might be right. Initially, I had reservations about online education. Part of this response, I must admit, came from the bias that I received my entire education — secondary, undergraduate and graduate schools — before the modern use of the computer. Another part of this response, I must also admit, probably came from a residual attitude that I had attended the “best” schools on major campuses, and that no off-campus educational experience could match them (even though I had, over time, become critical of those same schools). But the present crisis in higher education, and its astronomical rise in costs, I now believe could bring about radical change. If college and university presidents, boards of trustees and faculties do not quickly adapt or change in the face of this crisis, I think parents and students, the customers after all, will force a change by turning to online higher education, more technical community colleges and other new institutions to prepare them for their adult careers.

…Online higher education in the U.S.has just gone through a shake-up, as it is in the process of upgrading its standards and overcoming widespread past attitudes that online colleges and universities were “diploma mills.” But the best and some of the largest of these online institutions are surviving and growing. Able to provide quality undergraduate and technical higher education at much lower cost, and without the contemporary issues of “diversity,” “sustainability,” and political correctness now so out of control on so many of today’s college campuses, the online education industry is poised to grow exponentially and change the physical character of higher education in America.

In the past, the college campus offered a student an”experience” beyond just book learning. But today, the college campus has lost its balance and its economy in so many ways. The tyranny of political domination of the campus, grown unabated for the past 50 years, is about to be upended. This educational revolt is not going away.