The problem with survival of the fittest is it’s unfair to the unfit. They always die.

When we humans know we must adapt or suffer, we are often incapable of doing so. We marinate and mull. This inefficient process becomes worse in large organizations with deep-seated traditions, which can act like lumbering dinosaurs.

And we know what happened to them.

Newspapers are in this group, admittedly. So are Maine’s public colleges and universities, which are experiencing stress from these economic times and the shifting tendencies of their primary resource: students. What they’ve done for years is no longer sustainable, long term.

Both the University of Maine System and the University of Southern Maine are soul-searching about their future. No longer can they act like students just come to them. Their future lies in offerings that bring them – as institutions – out to their students.

Chancellor Richard Pattenaude at the UMaine system and President Selma Botman at USM both extol Internet-based education as the way to do so. They’re on the right track. Online education is a growing, smart model for expanding the reach of colleges beyond campus.

For Maine, this strategy is particularly integral. This is a big state with transportation woes, a shortage of public transport, lower incomes and an expanding need for educational outreach and training for non-traditional students as traditional economies wane.

Online education is attractive because studies show there is geographical affinity – most students who enroll in online courses do so from the college’s backyard – adding seriousness to it, as they do so to earn their degree, not to dabble in the experience.

That’s what Botman says. It’s one reason she praises, though it might sound like blasphemy in some educational circles, the online-only University of Phoenix, which tapped into the demand for Internet-based education earlier than any brick-and-mortar institution.

With USM and the UMaine system seeing technology as key to their success, it makes sense for them to work together on developing and promoting online education for Maine, to tap the potential for outreach and seize on the cost efficiencies that could come with such collaboration.

There could be opportunities for consolidating lower-level basic courses, the 101s and 102s, into online packages to make delivery of the materials more efficient and wide-ranging.

This should allow greater emphasis and investment into the higher-level disciplines that make each university system unique and, therefore, competitive.

What if USM and the UMaine system pooled efforts to create a broad online education curriculum – perhaps even a new college in Maine unto itself – that both created cost efficiencies and expanded educational opportunity to students across the state?

Sounds like survival of the fittest, to us.