The quality difference is in the students, not the courses. Top brick and mortar schools are very hard to get into. Beyond that, some of them are even very hard to graduate from.
As an example, take the University of Waterloo (by no means a top school in the world, but definitely up there in Canada). For the math faculty, in 2018 we had 16,000 applicants for undergrad math programs and admitted 1,200. That's a 7.5% acceptance rate. Beyond that, we regularly see upwards of 30% of first years fail one or more of their courses. Many of these fail two courses and are asked to withdraw.
You just don't see that with online courses. Anyone can take them and the high percentage who never complete the course are assumed to have lost interest, likely due to a lack of significant investment in the program. Brick and mortar universities signal serious commitment in time and money on the part of the student, in addition to ability.
> Many of these fail two courses and are asked to withdraw.
Wait, after a single failed course?! That seems... cruel to do to people straight out of high school. I failed linear algebra 1 (sort of by accident). But here in a European country, people fail stuff regularly, only like the top 40% maybe have "clean years" every year, actually some very good students sometimes fail stuff too when I think about it.
No, you are asked to withdraw if you fail 2 math courses out of the 5 courses you take in your first term. Most people take 2 math courses, a CS course, an English course (required), and an elective.
You can fail your elective and they won't care, but that's really unusual since people choose easier courses for that.
As an example, take the University of Waterloo (by no means a top school in the world, but definitely up there in Canada). For the math faculty, in 2018 we had 16,000 applicants for undergrad math programs and admitted 1,200. That's a 7.5% acceptance rate. Beyond that, we regularly see upwards of 30% of first years fail one or more of their courses. Many of these fail two courses and are asked to withdraw.
You just don't see that with online courses. Anyone can take them and the high percentage who never complete the course are assumed to have lost interest, likely due to a lack of significant investment in the program. Brick and mortar universities signal serious commitment in time and money on the part of the student, in addition to ability.