for employers. I don't see that going away for a long time. For example, MIT puts many of its courses online for no charge at all. Anyone who wants to can study exactly what MIT students study. But you won't get the same job MIT grads will. A lot of what you're paying for when attending a bricks-and-mortar university is the name, because employers will pay more to know that the person they're hiring has been prescreened and pre-selected.

Schools like MIT could go one hundred percent online for even their admitted students, but any elite university looking at doing that would lose its elite reputation pretty quickly. Part of what they're selling (to prospective students and potential employers) is the opportunity to work closely with elite professors and experts.

I agree that the less elite universities will indeed find it harder and harder to keep the bricks and mortar versions though.