College, Connected: Online Enrollments at HBCUs Continue To Grow - Higher Education: In the past decade, the rate of growth in online enrollments has been “extremely robust,” but holding steady, according to the report, Changing the Course: Ten Years of Tracking Online Education in the United States. When the Babson Survey Research Group of Babson College, a private institution in Massachusetts, and the College Board released the report in January, close to 70 percent of administrators surveyed said that online education was critical to the future of their institution. In 2002, that number was less than half.
At the same time, the number of students enrolling in at least one online course in fall 2011—more than 6.7 million—increased by 570,000 over the previous year. The increase may signal why advocates of online learning say they are optimistic about the potential of technology and distance education to offset declining enrollment among traditional students with older, nontraditional ones. It may also mean new opportunities to reach and teach more students and to generate needed revenue for colleges and universities.
