Brad's Blog | Higher Ed Online Learning Grows - What Does This Mean for Independent Schools?

Higher Ed Online Learning Grows - What Does This Mean for Independent Schools?

The new annual review of online learning at the college level has just come out from the Sloan Consortium. They report that:

“Over 6.1 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2010 term, an increase of 560,000 students over the previous year.
The 10% growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the 2% growth in the overall higher education student population.
Thirty-one percent of higher education students now take at least one course online.
Reported year-to-year enrollment changes for fully online programs by discipline show most are growing.
Academic leaders believe that the level of student satisfaction is equivalent for online and face-to-face courses.
65% of higher education institutions now say that online learning is a critical part of their long-term strategy.
There continues to be a consistent minority of academic leaders concerned that the quality of online instruction is not equal to courses delivered face-to-face.” (Sloan Consortium: http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/going_distance_2011)

The report shows that independent schools not engaging in online learning need to ask themselves two key questions:

If one-third of college students are taking online courses (and 10% more are taking online courses each year), what are they doing to prepare their students for online education at the next level?
If two-thirds of higher education institutions see online learning as a critical strategic initiative, why don’t they?