Let's be honest here. The fact is college is more necessary then ever, its also desirable. The political conversation today is focused around jobs, and job cr

Let's be honest here. The fact is college is more necessary then ever, its also desirable. The political conversation today is focused around jobs, and job creation. But its kind of deceiving. Our problem isn't that we can't find enough work for people, its that we can't find enough unskilled, or low skilled work for people. If you've ever spent months looking for a person, in this "high unemployment" era. It'll be obvious to you too, and it's not simply a matter of having unrealistic expectations. We've entered a new era of employment. It used to be that you could just take a high school student, assume he'll have what you need, then spend a few years mentoring him to fill in the rest. Today, that generic mold doesn't work. A lot of companies are carving value out of doing things more efficiently, and often that means finding people with very specific sets of skills. Online education is EXTREMELY useful for this. I personally was able to get my current job by watching online lectures. I certainly wasn't an expert on the subject, but at the very least I was capable of demonstrating how capable i was to learn it on my own. Formalizing this process would only help this process! If online education isn't working for some students, I don't think we should be questioning whether online education is the right path. Clearly it's necessary, and the small successes its had now has proven that it has potential. Instead of going backwards, we should be asking how we can go forwards.