The virtual university may meet the needs of these students and others who are changing the higher education market. Information equality also implies other changes for higher education. Some of them follow. Consequently, growing numbers of students will design personal majors that cut across traditional disciplines, merging fields of study in ways that best suit individual learners. The physical organization of many institutions also will change as digital archives on the Internet and World Wide Web grow and evolve.
Libraries present a special challenge, particularly at smaller institutions.
Many students now bypass the stacks in their college libraries in favor of the best electronic libraries in the world. Archives of selected fields might reside in a few locations to which students and scholars would gain access via computer networks. To cope with these challenges, higher education needs to adapt old solutions to new problems. For example, visionary leaders may target a capital campaign to create infrastructures that support a virtual library, rather than building or expanding a physical structure that will become obsolete in few years. As recently as two decades ago, it was the rare college graduate with extensive work experience who returned to campus for an advanced degree, update or learn skills, or to pursue a different interest.