The purpose of our study was to investigate the reasons for the global popularization of massive online education, its scale-up in the context of the organization of education through the forced transition of all universities to the distance format and to construct approximate forecasts of changes in higher education after the pandemic. It was interesting for us to analyze the process of complete replacement of the traditional format of education with distance learning, the active use of massive open online courses (MOOC) developed by other universities by teachers and students in university classes, how the MOOC influenced the change in the traditional system of university education, how the dynamics of the number of students as listeners on online platforms has changed. The leading research methods were a theoretical analysis, a review of scientific literature, information of Internet resources, a method for analyzing the educational activities of higher educational institutions, a comparative analysis and interpretation of the results of the work carried out. In the course of our research, we found that, in general, the majority of higher educational institutions were able to provide uninterrupted online learning, some of the teachers improved or mastered the competence in computer educational technologies for the first time. At the same time, problems were identified that, with all their broad functional capabilities, online learning was inferior to offline learning: conducting laboratory work in engineering and technical disciplines, organizing pedagogical practice for future teachers, research work, etc. A particular difficulty for teachers was, for example, the impossibility of monitoring students during the performance of tests, updating Soft Skills, incompatibility with online teaching of academic disciplines saturated with emotional, spiritual and moral views, feelings and beliefs. The practical significance of the article lies in the use of the obtained results and research materials in the organization and management of online and offline education in higher educational institutions. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that the situation of the complete transition of universities to distance learning was analyzed; the problems of its implementation and organization in different conditions of security, physical and emotional isolation of students and teachers, social inequality in access to high-quality Internet communication and the provision of modern computers were considered; the need to reformat the education system - the optimal combination of options for online and offline education formats - was identified.