I strongly believe in eventually getting rid of most traditional university lectures and replacing them with excellent online, free videos. However:
1) That's not all you get from a university. Labs, smaller classes, etc etc are very important.
2) The amount material covered by currently available free courses/videos is very, very small. You might get a semi-complete computer science and math education, but that's about it.
I dont' know about getting rid of lectures. on the one hand, I think just being talked to formally for 90 minutes absolutely sucks. But it's not going to be better on video. Plus maybe it helps you discipline for uninteresting things. I like group work and discussion based stuff, however there's a limit because I want the person who knows what the are talking about giving most of the points, not the person who wants to be class clown or waste my time in an expensive course.
Group work, or actually working while being able to ask questions is pretty cool. It can always be better for any particular person but it's never going to be perfect, so best to just keep steering it in the right direction.
I do agree that the lectures should be recorded and available. Otherwise it's just lost to the ether when the educator quits or dies. And I need to hear things a few times before the importance sticks.
1) That's not all you get from a university. Labs, smaller classes, etc etc are very important.
2) The amount material covered by currently available free courses/videos is very, very small. You might get a semi-complete computer science and math education, but that's about it.