Lessons Learned at Dot-Com U.

"University presidents got dollars in their eyes and figured the way the university was going to ride the dot-com wave was through distance learning," said Lev S. Gonick, vice president for information services and chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "They got swept up."
American universities have spent at least $100 million on Web-based course offerings, according to Eduventures, an education research firm in Boston.