These pressures often take the form of demands by state legislators that professors should teach more classes, usually at the expense of research and off-campus extension or service activities. Such measures maintain the status quo and will not foster the lifelong learning opportunities now sought by the general public. Colleges and universities have the chance to serve a much larger group of customers if they decide that they are in the business of providing continuing education and training. The demand for lifelong learning brings to mind a question faced by the railroads in the early twentieth century. Their decision was to continue running the railroads and leave the matter of providing transportation to others.
Higher education faces a similar question.
Distance education methods offer one means of meeting the demand for lifelong learning. Adult learners identify busy lives, inflexible course schedules, and the lack of available courses offered nearby as major barriers to getting additional education and training. Many have neither the interest in nor flexibility to follow a tightly orchestrated course sequence over a period of several years. Technological developments in computing and telecommunications provide options for bringing education to the home and work place in ways not imagined only a decade ago. For example, two-way, interactive video now brings together teachers and students in different locations, often separated by long distances.