Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States
August 10th, 2009The Sloan Consortium and Babson Survey Research Group (an organization based at Babson College in Massachusetts) released their sixth annual report on the state of online higher education last November and I recently revisited the report. Titled, “Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States,” there are several elements contained therein that I feel are worth noting here.
Attempting to answer “the fundamental questions about the nature and extent of online education,” the report addresses several topics that provide evidence that the “nature and extent” of online education is growing rapidly in the United States. The report begins by noting the significant increases in enrollments in online colleges and universities. According to the authors, in the fall of 2007, some 3.9 million students were taking at least one online course, representing a twelve percent increase over the previous year. The growth in enrollments for higher education as a whole grew at only 1.2 percent. The report notes that in total, 20 percent of all US college and university students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2007 semester.
