PUBLISHED: 9/20/2012 11:58 PM |  Print |   E-mail | Viewed: times

OTHER VIEWS: Use technology to improve higher education


Experiments like the University of South Carolina's Palmetto College are a good start. This program will allow students with two years of classroom college credits to finish a bachelor's degree online.





That could change if colleges and universities move to a higher-volume business model that isn't based on residential students.

If students don't have to live on campus, then they and their parents don't have to pay the college for room and board costs, which often equal tuition.




That would allow South Carolina to have a more educated and higher-skilled workforce, which would enable us to better attract businesses, improving our economy.

USC and other state schools should push forward with online learning. The function of these colleges is not to win football games or to reach high rankings in national magazines. It is to prepare South Carolinians and the state's workforce for their economic future.

That future will require much greater access to higher education, and online learning may be the method to accomplish that goal. -  By the Herald Journal of Spartanburg