Well, to quote the speech I alluded to, "I hear there are too many applicants to top colleges. Excuse me, but wouldn't it be good to educate more students? Instead of saying there are too many applicants, why don't you work on increasing the availability of high-quality course offerings? [....] These institutions all find it more profitable to manage scarcity than to offer abundance." And I agree. Why do we restrict class sizes? Economically, isn't it more profitable for a university to charge $500/year to ten thousand students than $3000/year to a thousand students? So why aren't they doing it? Technologically, I'd say we have the means, at least in urban centers. Broadband networking; cable modems or the like, are readily available in any mid to large-sized urban center. I've sat in classes where 500 students were crammed into the same theater, how often do you think a single hand raised in the crowd got heard? We already have teaching assistants for professors; they grade exams, answer your questions; theoretically, the professor is there solely to teach and answer advanced questions. Why can't we broadcast lectures to students in remote locations, funnel questions through more TA's to be answered live during a lecture or personally after the lecture? It's not a technological issue on that front.

Now, you may say 'but how do you know who's really writing the exam, if you don't have to be physically present to write it?'. I'm sure you know someone who cheated in school. Did most of the class? Probably not. Why would personal integrity, something universities try to imply is strengthened through their education program, be any less if the person were in another room? Another country? And really, if the degree is the important thing, offer dual degrees, one for 'remote learning'. Future employers can assign a lower trust level to that degree if they're really concerned about it. People who received the degree without the work are bound to be found out fairly quickly anyway, whether they cheated in your classroom or in their house.

'How do we ensure that only paying students are seeing our professors, learning from our lectures?'. My response? Why do we care? If you're operating at a profit, and you've secured access to your high-bandwidth material reasonably so you're not paying internet service charges for more students than you have, why would you care? Students don't get the degree without writing the exam and / or paying tuition to your institution, so what's the big deal?

The validity I can see to any objection is on the issue of lab work, or research. If you require training in, say, particle physics, it's not likely you have a cyclotron in your basement. (ooh, new winter project for your editor.....:>). But from personal experience, of the courses I was taking, only one of them actually required my physical presence in a lab. The rest could as easily have been done from home. With reduced student load on campus, less expenditures need be wasted on facilities for lectures, and more emphasis placed on specialized lab equipment and salary for high-quality instructors. Who loses in this scenario? Nobody that I can see...