Babson Report Shows Plateaued, Slowed Growth in Online Learning

One in every three college students takes at least one course online, according to a report released yesterday by Babson Survey Research Group.

That totals 7.1 million students, an increase of 400,000 from last year's report, but percentage wise, the lowest growth rate recorded since Babson Survey Research Group began collecting data on online learning more than a decade ago.

"While the rate of growth in online enrollments has moderated over the past several years, it still greatly exceeds the growth in overall higher education enrollments," said I. Elaine Allen, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group, in a press release.

Babson Survey Research Group has published "Grade Change: Tracking Online Education in the United States," since 2003. This year's report includes responses from more than 2,800 degree-granting institutions, which represent 81 percent of the higher education market, and was published in partnership with Pearson and the Sloan Consortium.

The number of academic leaders who described online learning as critical to their institution's long-term strategy fell from 69 percent to just under 66 percent this year.

Despite this potential plateau in administrator buy-in, Jeff Seaman, the reports other co-author, notes that the changes in sentiments come from institutions that do not offer any online courses.

"Institutions with online offerings remain as positive as ever about online learning," Seaman said in a press release. "But there has been retreat among leaders at institutions that do not have any online offerings."

Additionally, the number of academic leaders who rated online education as the same or superior to face-to-face learning opportunities dropped from 77 percent to 74 percent.

For orders of magnitude, just over 57 percent of higher education administrators agreed that online learning was comparable to face-to-face opportunities when Babson first collected data more than a decade ago.

The report also notes that while Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have garnered much attention among mainstream media outlets, they are only offered by 5 percent of institutions. Another 9 percent of institutions surveyed reported they had MOOCs in the planning stages.