Online Courses Fuel Growth in Colleges' Continuing-Education Programs, Survey Finds.
Online-course enrollments now account for about a fifth of all continuing- and professional-education enrollments at the typical college or university, and online courses continue to attract more students to continuing education, according to a new report. The report, which is based on a survey of 43 nonprofit institutions, predicts that online continuing-education enrollments will grow by about 20 percent each year for the next few years.
"What gets a lot of attention in this area is the for-profits, but just in our sample, we have about 175,000 enrollments, so that's a big chunk of the market," said Sean R. Gallagher, a senior analyst at Eduventures Inc., the research and consulting firm that conducted the survey and produced the report.
A 2005 report issued by the Sloan Consortium, a collaborative of colleges that offer instruction online, estimated that online enrollments reached 2.35 million nationwide in 2004, the most recent year for which survey data is available.
The 43 institutions that participated in the Eduventures survey are part of the company's Continuing and Professional Education Program. About three-quarters of the participating institutions are public, and the rest are private.
The typical continuing- and professional-education division offers 150 for-credit courses, eight degree programs, and 24 noncredit courses online. Fully online courses and programs dominate the online continuing-education market, but about two-thirds of the colleges surveyed also offer hybrid courses, which combine online and classroom instruction.
About half of the institutions surveyed said they outsourced at least some aspects of their online continuing-education operations. About a quarter of the colleges had licensed noncredit courses from a third-party provider, and some had completely outsourced their noncredit online operations.
The report is available only to members of Eduventures' Continuing and Professional Education Program, and those interested in more information should contact Eduventures.
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