A student lounges on his couch, eating cereal while listening to his professor give a lecture. While this scene may evoke a feeling of a relaxed learning environment, many, if not all students would actually find it much harder to experience a good quality education from home. By attending school from home, students would be unfocused and miss out on opportunities that only a physical school can provide. A school provides a specified location completely dedicated to learning. Students from all over get together and interact, learning not only the course material, but life skills in human interaction.

Many homes that house one or more students are normally very busy place. Take an average middle class family, around two parents and three children. At least one parent has work, so they are away for they majority of the day. The other parent must now be the one to shuttle the students to doctors appointments, and cannot leave them home. The parent would have to decide between taking their children to everywhere the parent goes, and distracting the children from education, or leaving them home alone. Either the students would not be able to focus on their work, or the parent would not get anything useful done. Say they had a nanny to watch the children while the parents work. Now the children have to be impossibly restrained to keep themselves from bothering each other. Imagine trying to focus on a physics lecture while trying to stop a young child from coming into your room screaming. Even if the conditions at home are completely perfect, a student needs to somehow remain completely focused. A screen with colors and sounds coming out of it does not hold one responsible as well as an in person teacher. The distractions could range from "just taking a break" to "just getting some fresh air" to "I'm just going to go to the movies". There is no real way the teacher could stop them. Many students lack self-control, or need to be taught it. These students would never learn that they can not just leave because something bores them. All, but especially young students would find focusing extremely difficult when not being held accountable.

Suppose the distractions are not an issue. A student sits down at his computer, switches it on, and is greeted by a neon light and artificial sounds. After the lecture, the student reaches out, switches the screen off, and takes a nap. This seems completely fine, but the student is missing a very crucial step; actual human interaction. This is vital for any functioning adult. No matter what job one has, they will always have to interact with another human. If a students life consists of just wake up, eat, watch a lecture, do the work, eat, go to sleep, then they miss out on human interaction other than their direct family for nearly eighteen years. That is absolutely not an ideal trade for the luxury of learning from home.

Some classes are altogether impossible to attend online. How would any musician learn to play in a group? Would they turn up the computer volume all the way just to hear a few other people? How would they play together if there is a delay in transmission? That completely rules out all of the musical department. What about workshop classes? Are the students expected to purchase thousands of dollars of machinery just to do a school project? Now the only classes available online are the ones that just pump your head full of words and facts. Nearly all schools also have extracurricular sports. These sports are much cheaper and easier to participate in than private clubs. Online, students can not exactly throw a baseball to each other. They would instead have to pay hundreds of dollars, even if they made they very selective tryouts.

After reviewing the negatives of the situation, it is apparent that they outweigh the positives. Just for the convenience of not leaving ones bed to take a class, one would have to give up human interaction, easily accessible activities, and the ability to distinguish a place of work from a place of rest.