University of London External Studies

Although the “external programme” through the University of London seems like an amazing deal, especially when considering the relatively low cost of obtaining a degree from one of the most respected schools in the field of economics (London School of Economics being a constituent college of University of London), there are, however, some apparent issues. The biggest (at least in my opinion) being that all students, both on-campus and external, are said to be tested and critiqued under identical standards and, therefore, receive a degree that does not differ from one another. However, an external student does not have the same access to professors, teaching assistants, fellow students, classrooms, etc., that an on-campus student has. LSE and University of London don’t even seem to provide lectures online—as many of their U.S. counterparts have done, schools like Harvard, Stanford, MIT, and UC Berkeley. How might one reconcile this? How exactly is one to say they received the same level of education that an on-campus LSE student received?