Sentence:  Since the launch early last year of [...] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model <WSD>obsolete</WSD>. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  No longer in use; gone into disuse; disused or neglected (often by preference for something newer, which replaces the subject).