Physical proximity doesn't need to be as expensive as it is, so there's still room for disruption.
Think about how University education should compare to high school education, in terms of costs. High school costs about $12k per student-year [0], which includes about 1200 hours of staff time [1].
My entire 4-year undergraduate course had less than 2000 hours of staff time, which was about half large lectures and half labs and tutorials. The lectures were always larger classes than high school, and the tutes and labs were about the same size, and mostly taught by later-year students who were paid less than high school teachers.
Facilities-wise, classrooms are classrooms, toilets are toilets, and offices are offices. I can't see any reason why university buildings should be more expensive than high school buildings, for a given number of students. Besides, high school capital outlay is less than 10% of total [0]. Universities can also have classes later in the day and at night, and so get more use out of the buildings.
Then there's equipment, particularly in the labs. The university had significantly more lab equipment than high school. However, there were also significantly more students using it. This wouldn't increase the cost of computer science, maths, business, etc, but might add to the costs of physics, chemistry, engineering. I'd need to see a real cost-breakdown to believe it would be much more expensive.
It should be possible to provide a similar level of education as current universities for less than $5k per year. That's disruption.
Think about how University education should compare to high school education, in terms of costs. High school costs about $12k per student-year [0], which includes about 1200 hours of staff time [1].
My entire 4-year undergraduate course had less than 2000 hours of staff time, which was about half large lectures and half labs and tutorials. The lectures were always larger classes than high school, and the tutes and labs were about the same size, and mostly taught by later-year students who were paid less than high school teachers.
Facilities-wise, classrooms are classrooms, toilets are toilets, and offices are offices. I can't see any reason why university buildings should be more expensive than high school buildings, for a given number of students. Besides, high school capital outlay is less than 10% of total [0]. Universities can also have classes later in the day and at night, and so get more use out of the buildings.
Then there's equipment, particularly in the labs. The university had significantly more lab equipment than high school. However, there were also significantly more students using it. This wouldn't increase the cost of computer science, maths, business, etc, but might add to the costs of physics, chemistry, engineering. I'd need to see a real cost-breakdown to believe it would be much more expensive.
It should be possible to provide a similar level of education as current universities for less than $5k per year. That's disruption.
[0] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66 [1] https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/sass/tables/sass0708_035_s1s.asp