The Industry Standard is running a long feature article about univirsities pimping their names by offering courses through “online universities.” One hopes that a Duke MBA obtained through an online course doesn’t count the same as one obtained by actually attending classes and interacting with other students. Actually, what really bothers me about all this is the idea of higher education falling into the hands of for-profit companies. The quickest route to profit is attracting more students, and handing out more degrees. It’s a slippery slope toward turning university degrees (perhaps even from prestigious universities) into worthless pieces of paper.