Is Online College Really Worth it?

Former online college students indicated that online participation projections have been realized, and there is no evidence that participations have reached a plateau. Online students continue to grow at rates faster than for the overall student body, and schools expect the rate of growth to further increase:

• Over 1.9 million students were studying online in the fall of 2003.
• Schools expect the number of online students to grow to over 2.6 million by the fall of 2004.
• Schools expect online enrollment growth to accelerate — the expected average growth rate for online students for 2004 is 24.8%, up from 19.8% in 2003.
• Overall, schools were pretty accurate in predicting enrollment growth — last year’s predicted online enrollment for 2003 was 1,920,734; this year’s number is 1,971,397.

Are students as satisfied with online courses as they are with face-to-face instruction?

Schools that offer online courses believe that their online students are at least as satisfied as those taking their face-to-face offerings:

• 40.7% of schools offering online courses agree that “students are at least as satisfied” with their online courses, 56.2% are neutral and only 3.1% disagree.
• Medium and large schools strongly agree (with less than 3% disagreeing).
• The smallest schools (under 1,500 enrollments) are the least positive, but even they have only 5.4% disagreeing compared to 32.9% agreeing.
• Doctoral/Research, Masters, and Associates schools are very positive, Specialized and Baccalaureate schools only slightly less so.

What role do schools see online learning playing in their long term strategy?

Schools believe that online learning is critical to their long term strategy. We asked if “Online education is critical to the long-term strategy” of the school. Every group with the exception of Baccalaureate schools agrees with this statement. Public and large schools were extremely strong in their opinions (only 3% disagreeing):

• The majority of all schools (53.6%) agree that online education is critical to their long-term strategy.
• Among public and private for-profit institutions almost two-thirds (over 65% in both cases) agree.
• The larger the institution, the more likely it believes that online education is critical.
• Doctoral/Research, Masters, and Associates schools are very positive, Specialized schools slightly less positive, and Baccalaureate schools slightly negative.

What about the quality of online offerings, do schools continue to believe that it measures up?

Schools continue to believe that online learning is just as good as being there:

• A majority of academic leaders believe that online learning quality is already equal to or superior to face-to-face instruction.
• Three quarters of academic leaders at public colleges and universities believe that online learning quality is equal to or superior to face-to-face instruction.
• The larger the school, the more positive the view of the relative quality of online learning compared to face-to-face instruction.
• Three quarters of all academic leaders believe that online learning quality will be equal to or superior to face-to-face instruction in three years.