Remote education has a long and storied history from before the Internet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_University

However I believe they do require you to show up for _exams_. Online proctoring is a miserable disaster, especially in the AI era, so I think for credentials it's unfortunately necessary to have in-person exams. (edit: checked and they switched to online during COVID, unsuprisingly, but are considering switching back)

The ease of financial fraud is a separate issue. In the US I suspect that's linked to widespread identity fraud.