We can expect, then, to see internet-based degree programming emerge from a number of brand name colleges and universities, and these will quickly gain market dominance over their hundreds of rivals. Harvard or Michigan State or UCLA will become the Microsoft of distance learning degrees in particular areas. From my admittedly occasional reading on the subject, I come away highly skeptical. No one has yet designed and implemented a business plan for extensive online course delivery that produces substantial profit while delivering a product similar to that available from an on-campus course offerings. The reasons are obvious.
Profit can only come from tuition dollars, which means large enrollments.
Thus far the economics are the same as for the bricks and mortar schools. Online degree programs must achieve economies of cost while at the same time delivering courses to a much larger student base. This means in practice, as we have seen, the most conventional recourse, the employment of cheaper labor. Once a professor designs a course, the implementation of the course is turned over to salaried or part-time assistants who process student work. Here the analogy with product delivery models breaks down, since students do not resemble customers purchasing objects.