Online Degrees Facts 

More college students are taking college online degree courses at colleges and universities in the US than ever before.

The sixteen southern states represent over one-third of total online enrollments, with over 1.1 million students taking at least one online course; more than 99 percent of the very largest southern institutions have some online offerings.

In one region offerings of blended courses decreased slightly between 2003 and 2005 while online course offerings grew. Only 38 percent of respondents agreed that “Blended courses hold more promise than online courses.”

In one region, sixty-three percent of schools offering undergraduate face-to face courses also offer undergraduate courses online, among schools with face-to-face Master's programs, 44% also offer them online.

Southern schools are consistently more positive about online learning than the national sample, business programs have the highest penetration at 48%, and southern schools have 672,000 online students.

In one region over 1.9 million students were studying online in the fall of 2003, 40.7% of schools agree "students are at least as satisfied" with their online courses, the majority of schools (53.6%) believe online education is critical to their long-term strategy. 

In one region, over 1.6 million students took at least one online course during Fall 2002; eighty-one percent of all institutions of higher education offer at least one fully online or blended course.