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This op-ed is wildly over simplistic, and manages to underestimate the power of good teaching both in a face-to-face environment *and* online, which is a remarkable feat. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/opinion/online-college-coronavirus.html
Neither mode of education is about simply "delivering content." In both arenas, skilled professionals make a hundred choices a day about how to reach and collaborate with students; how to fit the day's activities to the creative work of learning.
This line actually made me laugh out loud: "Once universities have developed a library of content, they can choose to draw from it for asynchronous delivery for years, both for their on-campus and online programs." Um, no. for lots of reasons.
Prime among them is the fact that no field of academic study is in stasis. We learn *new* information constantly; we are revising and refining our understanding of the world moment by moment, article by article, book by book, report by report.
Academic fields are not old copies of Encyclopedia Britannica, sittiing on a shelf for years in someone's parents' family rooms.
The author's understanding of online and blended pedagogy is woefully lacking. For example "Classrooms would need to be fitted with new technology so that lectures could be simultaneously delivered to students on campus as well as across the world." - no.
Uninterrupted lectures (lecture with no Q&A, no knowledge checks, no retrieval, no discussion embedded within) are widely understood to be a terrible pedagogical choice, for one. Two, we know that long lectures don't translate online - that 5-10 min videos TOPS are best.
So he's suggesting a terrible pedagogical practice be amplified in that terribleness. This is not smart pedagogy in any medium.
The author also elides the relationships and community-building that is key to all teaching, online or face-to-face. That cannot be provided from the library of content he imagines. It needs skilled teachers for it to work.
I could ramble about this for hours: instead let me link to @Jessifer's essay on building community in online spaces, which is a much better read than the NYTimes thing. https://www.jessestommel.com/how-to-build-an-online-learning-community-6-theses/
