Online Education Trends Report
BestColleges' 10th annual Online Education Trends Report provides the latest online learning experience data with insights from students and school administrators.
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Report overview
Key Findings
BestColleges’ 10th annual Online Education Trends Report is part of a long-term initiative to track trends in online learning. This report represents our eighth year of original data collection through two online surveys. Participants include 1,001 online students and 184 college and university administrators. Findings are presented in five categories: the online learning experience, marketing online programs and recruiting online students, online student satisfaction, artificial intelligence in online education, and planning for the future.
The Online Learning Experience
- Dealing with unexpected life events (25%) and paying for higher education (24%) are the top challenges to online program completion, as reported by online program graduates.
- The biggest concern about the online learning experience is work-life-school balance, reported by 29% of student respondents overall and more than one-third (34%) of prospective students.
- 77% of students currently enrolled in fully online programs are enrolled full time. Of that group, 53% are also employed either full time (43%) or part time (10%).
Marketing Online Programs and Recruiting Online Students
- Making a decision about online enrollment can be challenging. Prospective students’ top concerns are tuition costs and program fees (52%) and finding a program that meets [their] needs and interests (34%).
- Online program graduates say that if they could go back, they would do more research about program costs and financial aid (27%), compare more programs before enrolling (26%), have better technology resources (20%), and better understand how long it would take to complete the program (19%).
- Online students say that skills-based training and education are important to them (88%), and 58% of prospective students would consider microcredential and certificate programs in the future.
Online Student Satisfaction
- Student perception of the potential return on investment (ROI) of online learning continues to be strong — 93% of all students say their online degree has or will have a positive ROI.
- 97% of prospective online students, currently enrolled online students, and online program graduates would recommend online education to others.
- 81% of student respondents say that online is better than or equal to on-campus learning.
Artificial Intelligence in Online Education
- Most administrators (73%) see artificial intelligence as a beneficial innovation in online education, and 58% of currently enrolled online students say they are already using it to complete class assignments and exams.
- Existing institutional policies for faculty use of AI are only reported by 17% of administrators, but 66% say there is training available for those interested in exploring the use of AI tools for online teaching.
- Use of AI in online program admissions seems to be in the early stages, but 41% of students surveyed say they would trust schools to use it to sort applications, and 39% would trust schools to use AI to make admissions decisions.
Planning for the Future
- 40% of administrators say their institutions are planning to increase online program development budgets in the coming year; this is a decrease from 47% in 2023, but an increase from 35% in 2021, the first full year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- College and university administrators predict the most online enrollment growth over the next five years will be in health professions (29%), computer sciences (26%), and business (15%) programs.
- Most online program graduates (73%) say their programs prepared them for employment after graduation, and 31% say they were extremely well prepared.
How We Collect Data
How We Find Survey Participants
Are Survey Participants Compensated?
Our Knowledge and Authority
Meet the Author
Melissa A. Venable, Ph.D.
Melissa A. Venable, Ph.D., is an online education advisor for BestColleges. In this role, she leads this annual survey research project reporting online education trends found through student and school administrator feedback. Melissa is an adjunct faculty member and course designer at Saint Leo University and a certified career coach with a background in career development services. She earned her doctorate in instructional technology at the University of South Florida where her research interests focused on distance education and support services for online students.
