People learn many different ways. Online learning is not right for everybody.

Institutional inertia

I can’t even get my postgrad course to record class sessions for the english as a second language international students.

The MSc Sustainability from Cranfield University is all online besides a 4 day residential each year.

Seems to work really well for them.

I’ve got a master’s degree and I’ve also been a teaching assistant and I strongly disagree with the notion that online teaching is more effective. Putting all materials online is useful, but explaining something to someone is way more effective when you’re standing next to them.

As with remote work, it really depends on what you’re doing. Some jobs and classes are tailor made for remote, some are nearly impossible to accomplish remotely. COVID inspired some really creative uses of technology but at the end of the day, it was an augmentation not a drop-in replacement.

I think online courses should be available as much as possible whenever practical, but what we all have to realize is that designing an effective online curriculum is expensive and difficult. We also have to realize that certain activities will never transition to online and we just need to accept that. Taking a lecture with 300 students? Put that that thing online. Learning an instrument? You need to be in-person for your lessons and ensembles.

What needs to change is how in-person workers are compensated and how institutions support the development of online programs. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and.

Also money. If it was all free to get the paper online, who would pay to get it in person?

Some classes translate to an online format much easier than others. How do you effectively translate an upper level chemistry lab to be done online? Even if you could do it in such a way that the student gains the theoretical knowledge, it wouldn’t give them the hands on practice that they’ll need for real lab work.

Your experience is not representative of the majority.

What are your metrics for “effective?” As someone who is both teaching and taking classes currently, I can tell you engagement is pitifully low in online formats. Education is not just about memorizing facts and going through the motions to get a good grade. There’d have to be some amazing innovation in online education practices to convince me it will be the default anytime soon.

In practice, online education is worse. Discussion boards are a shallow replacement for real shoulder to shoulder conversations, many students speed through video lectures, and the entire experience seems flattened and gamified. It feels more “effective and efficient” but that feeling doesn’t necessarily match reality.

According to everything I have seen and read on the matter, most kids seemed to have a shit time with online schooling during COVID. Too easy to be distracted, frequent technical problems, no hands on activities or labs, no socialisation, no arts programs, no physical education, terrible support for kids who had learning problems or who otherwise required customised education plans, and the much larger class sizes meant an overall poorer quality of education.

For many, it was an unmitigated disaster, and most kids are much happier to be back at school in person. A handful loved it though. My daughter was one, though she also is very happy to have music classes again, so even she prefers being back in school.

Our conservative provincial government liked the cost savings though, so they tried to introduce an online course requirement to get your high school diploma, but due to popular demand, they had to include an opt out option. Since the opt out was so popular, they are now making it harder to access by requiring that you fill out a form for it available only by contacting the school guidance office.

Let’s face it, online education is not popular because it sucks unless your program only requires a lecture, you are very motivated to learn and study, you don’t need or want to discuss anything complicated with profs or peers, you have no learning or hearing disabilities, and you prefer to avoid people. It is great for work you already know how to do, which is the reason my daughter loved it, and why I like working from home. But default online education? Correspondence school has long been a thing, so if that’s you, fill your boots. It seems most would rather pass on it.

I think a great majority of learning in college comes from living someplace other than home. Meeting different kinds of people from different places and spending time with them. Classes are very important but so much learning happens outside of classrooms.

In my experience

That’s great, and that’s why it’s an option.

But research consistently shows that everyone is different and has different learning needs.

More ways to learn means more people succeed in learning.

Now your specific question is still quite interesting, with emphasis added to default:

Why it is not the default option for universities?

I think online is rapidly becoming the default for anything that can be learned online, for anyone who can learn online.

But I’m thankful that we have both community colleges and universities for things that cannot be effectively taught online and for people who needs more modes of learning.

Both me and my wife tried doing online courses for our Masters and ended up opting out that route.

Both of use found they were riddled with people who didn’t show up to the regular online ‘team meetings’ or wouldn’t contribute to the ‘team projects’ until the day of submission.

I know you have slackers in regular university as well but at least there, visibility and contribution is immediately noticed by the professors.

I would also argue that being hands on makes a huge difference in most courses.

I think it’s easier to stay motivated when you have contact with other people. Even the OU recognises this and tries to incorporate meetups or at least video conferences.