The Quality and Extent of Online Education in the United States

Link to site & full report (PDF, 27 pages, 695K)
"The online enrollment projections have been realized, and there is no evidence that enrollments have reached a plateau. Online enrollments 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.

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

• 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."

Read the summary (at least) or the full report . This report is excellent (27 pages), and gives us insight to the e-learning or online education state and progress in U.S. higher education.