Enrollment in Online Courses Increases at the Highest Rate Ever – Wired Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education via kwout
The Wired Campus article points to the reality that online learning is growing rapidly. The for profits like University of Phoenix, Kaplan and Capella understand this and see undergraduate online education as their “bread & butter”. Perhaps traditional Universities will start to understand this student demand and move toward meeting it. Consider the following numbers:
- 2,600 higher-education institutions surveyed by the Sloan Consortium and the Babson Survey Research Group.
- 1 million more students than in 2009 were enrolled in at least one Web-based course.
- 5.6 million – total number of online students.
- 20-percent increase over last year in online learning from for-profit universities (they get it).
- More public colleges than private for-profits—74.9 percent versus 60.5 percent—say online learning is part of their long-term plans.
- 32 percent of for-profit institutions—compared with about 17 percent of public colleges—said it will be difficult to comply with government regulations on financial aid.
- 66 percent of college administrators say that online education is the same as or better than face-to-face classes—a slight decline from last year.
