In this paper, I reflect on the changing role of higher education by focusing on the case of online education. I consider the promise of online education as a means to mitigate educational inequalities. Based on the available empirical evidence, I argue that this promise is unlikely to be fulfilled because online education is not well-suited to developing the social and emotional skills that are needed by students from low-income and minority backgrounds to achieve social mobility. I argue that this flexible, context dependent, and empirically grounded way of theorizing about the aims of higher education should lead us to revise the classical vision of the university's aims in light of its changing social, political, and economic role. The resulting proposal is sensitive to the university's new role without falling prey to coarse pragmatism. This approach delicately navigates the middle ground between idealism and pragmatism.