Distance Education Is Booming

In the fall of 2000, there were 45,000 enrollments in fully online or blended-online courses. That number grew nearly 22 times to one million enrollments by the fall of 2007.

While that amount represents only one percent of all courses in 2007, Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen in his provocative book, Disrupting Class, predicts that by 2019, about 50 percent of high school courses will be delivered online.

Consider these other statistics:

• 42 states have significant supplemental or full-time online learning programs.
• 26 statewide or state-led virtual schools exist in the U.S, according to the latest statistics.
• 173 virtual charter schools were serving 92,235 students in 18 states as of January 2007.
• 57 percent of public secondary schools provide access to students for online learning.
• In 2006, an estimated 3.2 million post-secondary students in the U.S. took at least one online course, representing a 25 percent increase over the prior year.

For more information, visit ClaytonChristensen.com.