Throughout the United States, online college enrollment has experienced significant growth every year for more than six years now, with last year saw the biggest growth is caused by the recent economic turmoil and rising unemployment. By the year 2008, one out of every ten college students were enrolled in online degree programs.
What are the main areas in which students learn in online degree programs? Is there a certain degree to achieve a more popular online than a traditional classroom?
Interestingly, the online degree is similar across the following seven major disciplines, according to Sloan Consortium study, Permanent Courses:
• Business
• Liberal arts and sciences, general studies, humanities
• Health professions and related sciences
• Education
• Computer and information sciences
• Social sciences and history
• Psychology
About one-third of schools surveyed by the Sloan offers online programs in every field of study, with 36% of schools reported a business degree online, 32% that offer liberal arts and sciences, 32% reported a health profession , followed by education, computer nad information science, and social science and history, and psychology. Other major discipline areas studied - engineering - not online as it is, as other subjects, or comparison to the availability in a traditional classroom format. Only 16% of schools reported offering engineering degree online.
Other sources put the highest degree online in varying order, however, business is unanimously the most frequently reported degree online college that offers that.
Interesting trends emerge when the subject is broken down by type of institution (public, private for-profit and private non-profit) and by type of degree (PhD / Research, Masters Baccalaureate, Associate, specifically):
One of the most significant trend is the penetration rate for the online program affiliated institutions. The only area where the discipline associated institutions have not reported the highest rate of online offerings in the health sciences. Associated institutions have clearly embraced online learning.