Over the next decade, institutions in the U.S. and in other countries with mature higher education sectors will be struggling to justify the cost and value of a residential degree program when students get much of the same content and a good portion of the classroom experience from an online instructor in another city or across an ocean.

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Among Pew Research Center survey respondents who graduated from a four-year college, 74% say their college education helped them grow intellectually, 69% say it helped them mature as a person, and 55% say it helped them prepare for a job or career.

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Dr Leonard Sax, the founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Single Sex Public Education, even claims a neurological reason for his cause: girls and boys mature at different rates, so they need different teaching methods.

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