Here, we sort through the clutter and pull out some of our favorite facts and figures:
- Online education is a $34 billion industry.
- At 250,000 students, the Open University, which teaches a majority of its courses online, is the largest university in the United Kingdom. It’s twice the size of the University of London.
- The for-profit University of Phoenix is now the largest university in the United States, enrolling more than 500,000 students. That’s about 13 times larger than the University of Arizona.
- There are currently more than three million online-only students in the United States. That’s more than the total number of college students in France.
- Use of online education has been growing at an astronomical rate, and it isn’t stopping. Seventy-five percent of public higher learning institutions have online learning in their long-term plans. By 2019, it is estimated that 50 percent of all classes taught will be delivered online, and many of these will be available for free.
- Almost half of college students take at least one class online.
- Nearly half of online students are 26 or older.
