Latest Trends in Online Education

We all know that education in the 21st century is changing. Online universities and degree programs are growing by leaps and bounds. Here are a few facts and some online education statistics that show just how much adult education is changing:

1. Online enrollment: So, just how quickly is online education growing? According to the 2010 Sloan Survey of Online Learning, almost a million more students enrolled in an online education course in 2009 than they did only a year earlier. A survey of 2500 colleges and universities showed that 5.69 million students had taken at least one online course in 2009. That’s the largest jump in online enrollment so far, and represents almost 30 percent of all students in the United States.
2. Universities offering online education: These new education trends showing such explosive growth for online learning don’t just apply to the students who have enrolled in such courses--they also apply to the institutions offering the classes. The Sloan Survey indicates that two-thirds of for-profit learning institutions provide online learning opportunities.
3. Top reason for online growth: What do online education statistics tell us about why this unprecedented growth is taking place? According to the Sloan Survey, the sluggish economy is the number one reason that learning institutions cite for their climbing online enrollment. While one-half of these institutions say that the slow economy is increasing demand for face to face classes, two-thirds report that the economic downturn is increasing demand for online coursework.
4. Corporate online learning: Universities aren’t the only institutions in which online learning is growing. New education trends are developing within corporations as well, with projected corporate spending on employee training by way of online coursework topping out at over $50 billion this year.

Advantages of Online Education

According to some statistics, enrolling in online universities does have advantages that traditional educational settings don’t provide.

1. Better educational performance: A study in 2009 from the Department of Education revealed that students who took all or part of a course online performed better on average than students who took the same course in a traditional classroom setting. The study did note, however, that those students who blended learning in both online and face to face settings performed the best of all students.
2. Older students perform as well as younger ones: A study at the University of Kansas shows that older adult students, aged 50 to 65, performed as well or better than younger students, aged 21 to 35, in online coursework. These older students required more initial training in newer forms of educational technology, but after this training, they mastered the coursework very well. What’s more, once their initial concerns were addressed, these older students were more satisfied with their online coursework than were their younger peers.