Among the surprising answers is that colleges and universities are charging more for online education to subsidize everything else they do, online managers say. Huge sums are also going into marketing and advertising for it, documents show. Universities and colleges “see online higher education as an opportunity to make money and use it for whatever they want to make money for,” said Kevin Carey, vice president of education and work at the left-leaning think tank New America. Online higher education is projected to pass an impressive if little-noticed milestone this year: For the first time, more American college students will be learning entirely online than will be learning 100 percent in person.
