From playing a key role in the harnessing of the atom to seeing over 50 affiliated researchers win Nobel Prizes, the University of California has always been on the cutting edge of the life of the mind. In the late 1950s, University President Clark Kerr spearheaded the development of the California Master Plan for Higher Education. For the last half-century, this blueprint has received plaudits for giving coherence to the state’s higher education system while promoting accessibility. Undoubtedly, the university deserves its reputation for triumphs of vision.

But as the university faces a massive crisis brought on by a trend of state disinvestment in public higher education, the response of its administrators has been reactive, not visionary. The work of one administrator stands as a notable exception: UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Christopher Edley is tirelessly promoting online learning – a concept that could revolutionize higher education. Rather than adopting the academic conservatism of many educators, he has challenged the educational establishment with a radical idea that merits serious consideration.

Edley’s commitment to making the university a leader in this field is not new, but recent developments have pushed his initiative to the forefront of public consciousness, attracting national attention. The UC Board of Regents last week rightly endorsed a privately-funded test program sponsored by Edley that would see 25 to 40 high-demand classes taught online by UC faculty. This program would be carefully assessed for quality, presumably to give the university administration data that they can use to make further decisions regarding online education.

To be sure, Edley didn’t invent online education. Many UC campuses currently offer a small number of classes online for UC credit. For-profit universities with loose admission standards already offer online degrees. On the other end of the spectrum, Harvard Extension School offers a myriad of online for-credit classes taught by its own professors and lecturers.

What is potentially revolutionary would be bringing to online education the combination of accessibility and educational quality that the University of California is known for. There is no doubting the fact that this move toward online education is driven by the budgetary situation – Edley’s presentation to the regents included ominous-looking graphs warning of a $4.7 billion budget gap and a 45,700 student enrollment gap by the end of the decade.

Online education is meant to save money by reducing the costs associated with a residential, brick-and-mortar experience. Moving some classes to an online model can also help ameliorate the problem of impacted classes, thus reducing average time-to-degree. Certainly, these are good enough justifications for the pilot program, but there is a social justice rationale for online education that also cannot be ignored: Online education is uniquely capable of reaching non-traditional students for whom a traditional residential experience is not a viable option. The university’s commitment to accessibility for qualified students almost mandates that the institution explore the possibilities of online education.

Nonetheless, there are serious concerns about the implementation of the pilot program. Although Edley argues that online degrees ought to be the eventual goal, this more ambitious dream should, for now, take a back seat to creating high-quality online classes.

Opponents of online education will be eager to seize any perceived failures as indicative of an inherent flaw in the idea. Therefore, it is key that the leaders of the pilot program are as transparent with their findings as possible, so the truth can be assessed by the public. It is equally important that they develop a measuring stick by which they can assess a concept as amorphous as quality.

Technical concerns abound. How will students receive counseling? How do we prevent cheating? What about laboratory-based classes? But a greater question looms: Will online education reduce the value of a UC degree in the job market? We find this fear far-fetched: So long as the university does not dilute its admissions standards, which Edley’s proposal does not seek to do, employers will know that the university remains a prime source of talent.

This initiative requires the cooperation of a significant portion of the faculty. Some of the faculty are wary about online education. We suspect this is because they believe the concept threatens their power and role within the academy. However, we find this concern to be short-sighted. Continuing budget cuts present a much greater threat and online education will not obviate the need for faculty to teach, to conduct research. We encourage faculty to join us in giving this idea a chance.

While we cannot guarantee the pilot’s success, we have witnessed too much paralysis within the university to allow an idea with such potential to fall by the wayside. As we step into the future, let us be careful about how we do so, but let us step boldly.