CAREER COLLEGE NEWS
The growth of online education
According to a report by the U.S. Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), enrollment for online/distance education courses has nearly doubled since 1995, with more than half of the United States online education enrollments (56 percent) in the two- and four-year degree-granting institutions. The report — Distance Education at Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions: 2000-2001 — also showed there were approximately 3 million enrollments in distance education courses offered by these institutions.
A 2005 study on the state of online education in U.S. higher education — Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States, by the Sloan Consortium — found that 63 percent of schools offering undergraduate face-to-face courses also offered undergraduate courses online, and 65 percent of schools offering graduate face-to-face courses also offered graduate courses online.
Studies like these reflect the rapidly changing opinions about online/distance learning. Online/distance education has gained much credibility in recent years. Many teachers, students and employers who were initially skeptical of the quality of distance learning in comparison to traditional face-to-face courses are now using the tools of online learning to gain greater access to higher education. Why are students increasingly choosing online learning? Accessibility and convenience. The easy access to learning via online programs is both convenient and accommodating for adult learners with busy work and home schedules, military personnel living abroad, and students with disabilities, among many other types of students.
Career colleges, long recognized for their ability to adjust quickly to the changing needs of the American job market, are now rapidly responding to student and workforce demand by offering a large number of online courses and degree programs. In fact, according to both studies, virtually all public higher education institutions — as well as a vast majority of private, for-profit institutions — now offer online classes. By comparison, only about half of private, nonprofit schools offer them.
As more students request these types of courses and programs, more higher education institutions are realizing the need to provide them. Online education is no longer considered a passing fad, and schools are beginning to prepare their long-term strategies to utilize this tool. The Sloan study showed that most types of institutions see online education as critical to their long-term strategy, an opinion growth from 49 percent in 2003 to 56 percent in 2005. Online education, now considered mainstream, has quickly become a key part of the postsecondary education sector and will continue to be so. While the growth, credibility and staying power of online education should not be overstated in comparison to traditional higher education, it can no longer be underrated or so easily dismissed.