The combination of non-traditional philosophies of postsecondary education with program delivery at a distance has set in place a revolution that will bring profound and lasting change to the environment in which a degree is earned.

This revolution is one that has the potential to democratize education fully and to reduce the role of the campus to a home for specialist, physically-based roles - such as lab-based scientific research, clinical practice elements of medical/dental schools (etc.) and the teaching of some applied arts disciplines. But much else - for example the teaching of business - can be freed from campus restrictions and instead be co-ordinated in the online environment. So can many other subjects.

At the moment, our societies allow young people the luxury of four years of the campus experience, subsidized by the taxpayer. How long will it be before the taxpayer asks whether this represents value for money in terms of the best way to qualify our workforce? How much of those four years is spent on essential study, and how much on the supplementary items such as sports teams, fraternities/sororities, and subsidizing student social life and "the campus experience"? When these questions are asked seriously, the prospect of part-time degrees via distance education - while working - will start to become even more popular.

Adults in mid-career have already worked these things out. Analysis of the market shows that they want a low-frills, direct and relevant path to their educational goals, at an economical price and without paying for luxuries or inessentials. Despite this, when they buy into education from state-controlled universities, they're still paying dearly to support the campus infrastructure, the protectionist tenure system and the costs of government-regulated accreditation, none of which are necessary to deliver a good education - and, as several independent studies show, are not even effective in doing so.

The educational establishment has become too much in love with its role as lofty state-supported patron. It still treats the doctorate as an academic apprenticeship, and it is still governed by a conservatism that protects its vested interests even when they run counter to those of society. It resists true and fundamental technological change while paying lip-service through allowing a relatively small number of online programs to run. As long as the fundamentals of the campus and the tenure system (and their support by the state) are kept intact, it believes it can control change and retain power. At the heart of that ideology is the ultimate disempowerment of the student and the needs of society at large in favor of the interests of tenured faculty, administrators, teaching unions, accrediting associations and the rest of the educational establishment.

Attempts at change from within the system are often laudable, but they will not work in the long run. The change that is coming to higher education will be a profound cultural shift and will include the destruction of many of the existing ways of doing things. What the educational establishment recognizes as its greatest threat is the prospect of a private sector counter-establishment with the flexibility to address market need directly. Distance education has removed the prohibitive costs and necessity for a campus from the task of establishing a university, and created the exciting possibility of progressive online private sector reformulations of the university concept - the universities of the future. It has also set in place a bitter and ongoing conflict between the state-controlled system and its defenders on the one hand, and educational entrepreneurs and progressives on the other.

The mainstream reacts to these developments by urging the state to legislate to outlaw the private sector and missing no opportunity to promote the falsehood that only the state can assure quality in higher education provision. In doing so, it sets in place a Luddite resistance to the inevitable technological change that threatens it. It permits the private sector to have a stake in its establishment only on condition that it abides by the rules it has set and does not bring about any real challenge to them.

Yet employers and others are all too aware that the more the state wraps up higher education in regulatory red tape and loudly promotes that system's supposed virtues, the greater the divide becomes between promises and outcomes. Educational standards are falling, universities are increasingly and damagingly politicized by the ideologies of the authoritarian Left, and consumer value for money is scant except where success depends largely on the university brand-name. The cause of these problems is an outdated and monopolistic system of centralized mass education promoting one-size-fits-all solutions in an increasingly individualistic world. The answer is simply choice, diversity, experiment, progress - all those things the private sector does best.

The prospect of serious universities in the private sector, beyond government control, harks back to the pre-1945 model of the university as an independent entity, not subordinate to the political class and its efforts to use higher education to bring about social engineering goals. As such, it has a long and honorable history. But this is more than simply a backward glance. The independent, private sector university, operating largely or wholly online, represents the most significant move in the future of higher education as it adapts to a global marketplace.

Perhaps you're looking to continue your education in a different way. An affordable way that fits round your life and your preoccupations, rather than uprooting you and cratering your bank balance. The opportunity to interface with a small, dynamic, growing university rather than a faceless corporate monolith. The chance to pursue study outside the mainstream's chosen areas and outside their ideologies.

If these prospects excite you, it's time to learn more about whether a distance degree from a private university might be the right choice for you. Why not visit the website of European-American University and see how our difference could be your success.