[Sly Fox]

Online Learning Set for Explosive Growth as Traditional Classrooms Decline

By David Nagel
01/26/11

By 2015, 25 million post-secondary students in the United States will be taking classes online. And as that happens, the number of students who take classes exclusively on physical campuses will plummet, from 14.4 million in 2010 to just 4.1 million five years later, according to a new forecast released by market research firm Ambient Insight.

Blended and Online Learning Growth
The report, "The US Market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services: 2010-2015 Forecast and Analysis," predicted a five-year compound decline of 22.08 percent per year in students attending traditional classrooms exclusively. The number of post-secondary students taking some (but not all) classes online will grow at a compound annual rate of 11.08 percent over the same five-year period, from 12.36 million in 2010 to 21.13 million in 2015. But the real growth will be seen among students taking classes exclusively online. Ambient predicted a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23.06 percent in that area, from 1.37 million in 2010 to 3.86 million in 2015.

And here comes the LU reference ...

Rounding out the top-5, Liberty University was the only top institution to see increased growth in the two-year analysis. Liberty U grew 24.3 percent from 2009 to 2010, reaching an enrollment level of 45,000. It had experienced significantly less growth, 15.6 percent, in the previous year.

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