Online Degree Programs Skyrocket

Online enrollment, including multiple courses taken by a single student, jumped from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million the following year, accounting for 7 percent of postsecondary education, according to Eduventures, a Boston firm that studies trends in education. Another study, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, reports that 65 percent of universities offering face-to-face graduate courses also offer graduate courses online. By early 2008, Eduventures predicts, about one in 10 college students will be enrolled in an online degree program.
"It's only going to grow," said Richard Garrett, an analyst with Eduventures. "The largest high school graduating class in U.S. history is expected to be 2009. There is going to be a lot of pressure on these students to get education in a competitive market."
Critics of e-learning have long said that learning alone through a computer does not provide the enriching intellectual exchange that in-person classes offer. In addition, they say that because the industry is so new, naive consumers may not know the difference between accredited institutions and fly-by-night operations that imply accreditation and charge steep prices. Most educators and industry executives acknowledge that e-learning may not be right for young learners who have not developed the discipline needed to work independently.
Some college administrators predicted that the online learning trend would explode a decade ago as the Internet became more popular, but some traditional schools over-committed before they understood the market. With much fanfare, Columbia University and New York University both launched online learning programs between 1998 and 2000, but they did not offer what some students wanted: a degree. Both programs closed.
Stanford University today offers online master's degrees in certain sciences, but most elite schools have looked down their noses at online degrees.
The University of Phoenix, the nation's largest for-profit online school, initially catered just to distance learning, and it is one of the few that has grown dramatically, by advertising heavily and targeting adult students. But it does not offer what some consumers want: a degree from a traditional brick-and-mortar institution.
At the University of Massachusetts, administrators knew from the beginning that there was an adult market that wanted and would pay for a brand name. "We really understand our audience," said Jack M. Wilson, the president of the university, who started the online venture in 1999. "Students are very different when they are older."
Wilson said his average online student is between 24 and 50, and working. The key for the school, he said, was to create an Internet entity that would blend seamlessly into the university -- admission standards are the same, degree requirements are the same, and the regular faculty is used and paid extra to teach online courses.
Massachusetts's online program offers 61 degree programs, having added 21 this year, and it has quadrupled its enrollment since 2002. In fiscal 2006, revenues for the online school grew 28 percent, and enrollment jumped 20 percent.
Schools that have taken on e-learning in a serious way say producing good, organized courses is labor intensive and expensive. For example, Massachusetts and Maryland's University College provide 24-hour library and technical support to students.
In 1999, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities launched JesuitNet, a collaborative effort in distance learning that allows 28 Jesuit schools to consolidate expenses and share coursework. They started with half a dozen degree offerings and now offer 45 degrees and 380 courses. One of the schools, Fairfield University, found that by offering summer classes online, it was able to keep revenues that students would otherwise have spent elsewhere. Within three years, the school went from 20 online summer courses to 40 -- all fully subscribed.
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