High-Tech Higher Education

Some say college kids don't crack the books often enough, but what if books weren't even necessary? On-line learning is a fast growing trend, but is it the best way to get an education?

Cheap food, shrink-wrapped school books... all sights and sounds of higher education swinging back into action.

Allison Hazell and her three roommates are freshman at George Washington University where classes begin on Wednesday. Roommate Deborah Stern is from Florida and Valerie Viott is from Oklahoma. They?re all filled with the typical ?finally-away-from-my-parents? thrill of new members of the higher learning society.

But these days college isn?t exactly what it was before. Today, students can learn without ever leaving the comfort of their own dorm. In fact, more than three million students across the country are doing just that.

?You can take your class in your pajamas from your dorm room; you can take it from home... almost anywhere.

Professor Michael Corry wrote the book on e-learning? literally. His just-published guide is out to help students learn on-line. Most classes at George Washington have at least some on-line component. You can even do biology experiments without getting your hands dirty.

But there are drawbacks.

Corry says that distance learning isn?t for everybody. ?You have to be a motivated person who?s going to stay on top of things because you?re not there. You don?t have that peer pressure that people are going to be looking you in the face everyday.?

Valerie loves the idea.

?There's a lot of things going on here that require time. And it?s a lot easier for me to get things done when I have a large amount of time to devote to it.?

But there is one important note. E-learning is not like those old-fashioned correspondence classes where you could save all the work for the last minute. Most on-line learning involves continuous participation, and students that don't click on, could flunk out. And it's a touch cheaper than taking regular classes, which leaves cash for the important things like Spring Break. Cancun Anybody?