However, the real educational battleground of the future could be for the territory occupied by bricks-and-clicks institutions, which is what most of today's major universities are likely to try to become, Levine said.

CNN: Web brings radical changes to higher education

The experiment with e-commerce thus far has shown that online shoppers tend to favor the bricks-and-clicks models so they don't sacrifice having a physical location where they can get advice, view products or make an exchange -- a finding that bricks-and-clicks universities are likely to recognize and copy, Levine said.

CNN: Web brings radical changes to higher education

So big national "bricks and clicks" retailers, such as Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart Stores and Target, collect taxes on most online sales.

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