Future of College Courses

Picture the typical college classroom: metal desks, large textbooks, and an overhead filled with notes. Now, picture it empty: this is how colleges may be in twenty years due to the flexibility and accessibility that online colleges offer to prospective students. The advances in media allow students to interact with their teachers online, just as they would face-to-face in the classroom. If media keeps advancing like has even within the last ten years, online colleges will become the new academic norm.

 According to student enrollment, Phoenix University, an online college, boasts the largest student of enrollment in the United States at over 319,000. The Diverse: Issues In Higher Education magazine reports that The University of Phoenix Online awards more “associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees to minorities than any other academic institution in the country.” On its website, the university states that “many of the conveniences that 21st-century students enjoy ― evening classes, flexible scheduling, continuous enrollment, a student-centered environment, online classes, digital library, computer simulations — were pioneered through University of Phoenix’s efforts.” These efforts paved the way for other online colleges to succeed by combining easy accessibility with desired degrees.

Many schools have noticed the growing popularity of online courses, and have started offering online options of their own. According to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 87 percent of all colleges offer online programs, and all of those colleges expect their online enrollment to increase in the future. performed a study that showed that online enrollment is experiences a 9.7 percent growth rate, while the rate for overall college enrollment is at 1.5 percent. In step with that report, a pair of 2011 Pew Research Center surveys reported that half of college presidents said a majority of their students will be taking online courses within 10 years. In a separate study by the Pew Research Center, fifty percent of college presidents think that within ten years, a majority of their student population will be taking their courses online. Additionally, an Eduventure study stated that nearly four million students will be taking classes online by 2014.

The appeal of online courses is undeniable, especially as the quality of technology continues to increase. Interesting enough, some colleges are even turning to online courses to avoid crowded classrooms.  For whatever reason colleges are deciding to make the turn, it is definitely the education of our future.