This article by King & Sen describes how the "traditional university" model has been "under attack" by external forces, and examines some possible responses. The basic idea is that traditional universities should take advantage of research to provide students with a differentiated learning-experience.
I have posted about that before:
The question is: what is the future of the existing schools in this context? To survive they will have to focus on the academic tasks that can not be massively delivered online, such as:
1) Applied research to serve local communities (social sciences, health, etc.)
2) Post-graduate degrees (MAs and PhDs), although low-cost online programs will come as well.
3) Teaching classes that need hands-on work in areas like engineering or medicine, etc.
To summarize, the new way of delivering online education will bring an international division of labor where local schools will have to be involved in the applications of the knowledge learnt online.They could very likely become applied research-and-teaching universities.
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