Yes, EQ is a big thing, for sure. But it should be taught well before the college years, and it shouldn't be left exclusively to the school system to provide this training- and that's actually a common gripe of many colleges when discussing incoming freshman. Incoming students fresh out of high school are short on soft skills and that contributes greatly to lack of college readiness.
As a former high school gymnastics coach (I spent a decade coaching gymnastics, boys and girls, toddlers to young adults, recreational as well as competitive) and currently as a gymnastics official in my state, I see the lack of soft skills being taught in our schools. My 16yo daughter (who is a typical, hormonal, rebellious, and stubborn teenager but with high anxiety) gets rave reviews from her employer about her common sense, her catch-on-quick brain, her polite customer service, her communication skills, and her work ethic- but you wouldn't hear any of that from her school (she's too busy bucking the inefficient and time-wasting system- to her own detriment, I'm sure- for them to see those qualities)... I'm convinced a good portion of this came from being in a service-oriented family where she was exposed to this training as a matter of course. I never thought I'd say something like that, but when I see the lack of critical-thinking practice that our high schoolers are getting- along with other soft skill practice- it's very apparent that we need to bring those very skills back into our primary schools, make them a priority, and teach them along side of the academics.
That can be done online, and I maintain that it can be done well online. It doesn't replace in-person interaction, but we won't be living in a pandemic world forever! And if we can broaden our ability to get education to the people, why wouldn't we try to use the technology to our advantage, innovate, and do that very thing?! And heck yeah- if it checks our colleges and forces a change towards efficiency and economy, all the better!
As for lifelong connections- lots of experiences offer lifelong connection opportunities... that's not exclusive to attending a college. Personally, of the 'lifelong connections' I've made in the career arena, approximately 0 of them came from my college days and 0 from my vocational school days. However, whether in my field of study or not, the lifelong connections that I gained from actually working are immeasurable. I personally don't think that's a strong argument when it comes to online vs in-person education.