Distance Ed Boomed Last Year, Signaling New Era for Learning
The number of students who sought postsecondary education through exclusively distance modalities grew from a little over 3 million in 2019 to more than 5.8 million in 2020, according to a new report by the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA).
The “exclusively” qualifier refers to students who enrolled solely in programs via distance education, as distinct from “hybrid” students, many of whom returned to campus in 2020, but took some of their classes in person while taking others online.
NC-SARA and other stakeholders predicted that there would be some sort of increase in exclusively distance education enrollment due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the near doubling of such enrollments was much more significant than anticipated.