"But it's hard to replicate some of the things a real classroom can offer -- those face-to-face interchanges that people often want." Nearly a decade after the Internet became a household fixture, the University of California system does not offer a single online course for undergraduates during the regular school year.

Still, private schools that cater to working adults, like DeVry University and the University of Phoenix, rely heavily on the remote teaching technique. And the small number of online courses at California State universities are popular among midcareer professionals who are too busy to sit in classrooms.

But students and educators warn online learning isn't for everyone.

Colleges report online classes historically have a higher attrition rate because of technological glitches, poor design and because some students simply aren't up to the task.

"It takes a tremendous amount of self-discipline," said California State University, Northridge, graduate student Sherri Elkaim, 43, of Studio City. "You can't sit there and passively get the lecture. You have to sit yourself down and carve out the time."

Elkaim, enrolled in a three-year online master's program to become a speech pathologist, said online courses are ideal for her because she can schedule them and the required clinical work around her children's school hours.

"I don't have to get day care for my kids, and it's a fine education," said Elkaim, a divorced mother of two. "I know the professors, because I was on campus, and their personality and style comes through loud and clear in the distance courses."

Students in online courses participate in discussions, complete assignments and access course materials and lectures via the Internet. And while it's possible to earn an entire degree and never set foot on a campus, many online courses also require students to meet with professors at least once or twice.

DeVry spokesman Bob Niersbach said all the school's graduate-level courses are offered online and in traditional classrooms, and four of its nine bachelor's degree programs also are available online.

"Online as a delivery method is very important," Niersbach said. "It's one of the ways we are able to achieve our mission as a university, which promotes increased access to education."

In contrast, the University of California system offers undergraduates just a handful of online classes, and only in the summer. Most of the other online courses are offered through the university extension schools and targeted at working adults.

UCLA offers a nursing administration master's degree that's partially delivered online, and the University of California, Irvine, also offers an online master's degree in criminology, law and society.

"The faculty haven't seen a huge need to provide online courses to their (undergraduate) students," said Paula Murphy, associate director of the University of California Teaching, Learning and Technology Center in Oakland.

"UC campuses are residential, and the gold standard (in education) has been time- and place-based, face-to-face education."

Ironically, early versions of the modern Internet were born at universities in the 1960s, primarily as a way to share research. But while more traditional classes include online materials as supplements to courses, educators aren't predicting rapid growth in online courses in coming years.

At the California State universities, which tend to have older students than the University of California system, 24 online degrees are offered -- most of them master's degrees -- out of a total of 1,800 degrees. About 20,000 of the Cal State system's 409,000 students are taking online classes.

More popular at some colleges than full online course offerings are "hybrid courses," which combine regular classroom instruction with streaming video and audio, interactive drag-and-drop exercises and message boards online.

Pierce College, which has about 17 online courses in a typical semester, has an additional 30 "hybrid courses.

"Creating an effective online course doesn't simply consist of placing lecture notes and PowerPoint slides online," said Mike Cooperman, distance education coordinator at Pierce College.

Many professors say hybrid courses are an effective and cheaper way of supplementing traditional instruction.

But UC Berkeley's Kirp, the author of "Shakespeare, Einstein and the Bottom Line: The Marketing of Higher Education," said initial expectations that online education could save overcrowded public universities millions of dollars by keeping students off campus have proved wrong.

"If universities imagine this to be a cost-saver or a moneymaker, they're doomed to disappointment," Kirp said. "What makes for a successful program is the close-to-24/7 availability of people who can guide the students through problems that they're having."

And that, he said, is costly to provide.