Argument: Online courses encourage sharing of academic information

One of the technical features of MOOCs is that content of courses can easily be shared between universities and learners (as content is freely downloadable). This is useful in two ways. First, people who are not earning credit from the course can have full access to educational materials, which expands knowledge of those not enrolled in the university. Second, less prestigious universities can benefit by learning how to design courses better, so they can offer better services. MOOCs even offer opportunities for universities to cooperate together to offer shared courses that would decrease duplication and increase quality of education [16], which would be of even greater benefit to financially stressed institutions. Shared educational resources would expand access to education even further and drive educational standards higher through university cooperation.

Candidate 1: "It is false to assume that MOOCs platforms would be the only or even the main way to provide university courses. The Open University uses its own resources for online and distance learning. This proves that, given advantages of online learning, universities can switch to digital learning themselves without any intermediaries. This also means that there is no reason for states to cut funding for universities as university learning would simply go digital, everything else staying the same. Even though some universities at the moment offer online courses for credit that are very cheap, these are not degrees, and it is unlikely to imagine that universities would offer cheap online degrees that would threaten their own existence."
Candidate 2: "It is questionable whether universities would be able to substantially cut administrative costs and facilities. They will have to spend substantially more on IT support for running courses, as well as adapting courses for the online format. Then it is likely that universities would have to spend substantially more on hiring teaching and research assistants to manage increased numbers of students enrolled. While student accommodation support is going away, the normal academic student support for questions about studies is not, and its workloads actually increase due to higher student numbers. At the end of the day, administrative expenses just have to be spent on different administrative tasks."
Candidate 3: "It is highly unlikely to believe that people can easily find other people to go through the degree for them on the massive scale, no matter how dedicated of a friend that person is. And even if that friend or a relative is a professional in the degree area, it does not mean they could successfully pass the degree as universities update their examinations and degree materials yearly. Besides, there are ways to prevent such fraud. For instance, Coursera charges fees for certificates that verify a person's identity by using a webcam while the person is taking the course [21]. In terms of having essays and papers written by someone else, this problem is no different from the traditional universities, as they cannot easily verify that the person themselves wrote those either."
Candidate 4: "It is not true that online communications cannot be as good as real life communications. MOOCs platforms already are addressing student and professor involvement via such means as discussions in internet forums, Google hang-outs etc. This communication can be expanded to other means that the internet provides, such as Skype chats, conference calls, instant messaging, and even broadcasting live podcasts where people can ask questions online. Plus, it is not true that students would not be able to communicate among themselves given the possibilities of social media. Sure, they probably won't meet other students in real life, but that does not mean they cannot try to get to know each other online, especially since this is the only option. The internet has the capability to promote inclusive dialogue between students and professors, this capability just is not used to the fullest at the moment."
Candidate 5: "While there would no longer be a traditional university campus to carry out these activities, it does not mean these activities would disappear. Given the popularity of societies with students, it is expected that other platforms would spring up to fill in the gap. For instance, student clubs can be established in cities or regions, provided either by for-profit entrepreneurs (as in MOOCs platforms) or self-managed by students themselves. The only difference would be that these new platforms might no longer be affiliated to a university but rather be geographically based. This, however, is not a bad development as students would still have an opportunity to join societies. Students can easily be recruited into them via social media and the internet. Maybe not every student will have an option of the society they'd like to join, but that is also the case in lots of traditional universities."
Candidate 6: "Though it is good for personal development opportunities to access educational material don’t mean anything in the labour market that requires verification of understanding through grading. As regards to universities cooperating; that might actually result in the same course being offered by many smaller universities, which decreases the room for free thinking and interpretation, which is an integral part of academic development [17]. Moreover, if with MOOCs prestigious universities can accept more students, this might mean an end to many less prestigious universities altogether as they would not be able to compete. This could actually diminish access to university education for many people who cannot make the cut for the prestigious universities."
Candidate 7: "MOOCs primarily reach already educated and thus privileged people. Roughly 80% of people who took Coursera courses already have a Bachelor' degree [12]. This statistic shows that the less-advantaged do not prefer online courses over the traditional university nor do they find them more convenient to take. At the least it shows MOOCs are just reaching the same people as universities. Even if universities drop tuition fees, which does not seem likely, the argument is entirely based on the idea that poorer people would find it easier to do courses from home. However, many of the poor do not even have access to internet at home, including an estimated 100 million poor Americans [13], not to mention much larger numbers of poorer people from less developed countries."
Candidate 8: "Online courses are popular not because they are flexible, but because they provide an opportunity to expand one's knowledge on a variety of subjects. For example, the most common reason for people taking Coursera courses are professional development and lifelong learning, the latter being essentially pleasure learning [9]. While there is nothing wrong with people taking courses to expand their knowledge or add to what they already know, it nevertheless indicates that MOOCs are not really used for furthering one's academic knowledge. This objective is and will remain the field of traditional universities."
Candidate 9: "This is exactly as saying that people who did not go to universities are not independent enough. We know this to be wrong in practice and this is so because independence is not obtained in a fixed set of circumstances. There are different ways to foster independence (e.g. part-time work, personal relationships parents don’t necessarily know about, etc.) that are also very much dependent on the persons' character rather than their circumstances. Besides, rites of passages are a subjective and culturally defined – if people no longer leave for universities, a new type of passage into independence is likely be constructed."
Candidate 10: "Online courses enables universities to accept virtually unlimited numbers of students regardless of presence of tuition fees. If universities keep tuition fees, it makes sense to admit more students because they are no longer limited by availability of physical space; if they drop tuition fees, they still should accept more students because their revenues would depend on how popular they are. What this means is that instead of picking just the brightest of the applying lot, universities can now accept pretty much everyone who meets the basic standard criteria. Not only this decreases the quality of professionals and academia, it decreases the value of a university degree."

Though it is good for personal development opportunities to access educational material don’t mean anything in the labour market that requires verification of understanding through grading. As regards to universities cooperating; that might actually result in the same course being offered by many smaller universities, which decreases the room for free thinking and interpretation, which is an integral part of academic development [17]. Moreover, if with MOOCs prestigious universities can accept more students, this might mean an end to many less prestigious universities altogether as they would not be able to compete. This could actually diminish access to university education for many people who cannot make the cut for the prestigious universities.
