The “Iron Triangle” in higher education refers to the interdependent relationship among access, cost, and quality, suggesting that improving one dimension inevitably compromises at least one of the others. Traditionally, expanding access to higher education has required increased financial resources, thereby raising costs, while efforts to enhance quality through smaller class sizes, research-intensive faculty, and advanced infrastructure have also driven up per-student expenditure. Conversely, attempts to reduce costs have often been associated with larger class sizes, limited learner support, and a perceived decline in academic standards. This relationship has shaped policy debates and institutional strategies, particularly in resource-constrained economies. From an economic perspective, the iron triangle reflects the high fixed and variable costs inherent in conventional campus-based education. Physical infrastructure, faculty salaries, administrative overheads, and location-bound delivery systems make higher education a relatively expensive service. When access is expanded by enrolling more students, institutions face rising marginal costs unless they compromise on quality. Similarly, maintaining high quality while keeping fees affordable limits the scale at which institutions can operate. Thus, the traditional model reinforces the notion of an unavoidable trade-off among the three elements. Distance and Online Learning (DOL) challenges this long-standing assumption by