Post-secondary online learning outpaces K-12

In post-secondary institutions, during the 2021-22 school year (the most recent data available):

"Overall, 33% of students in this period took only online courses, and a further 37% took a mix of online and face-to-face courses, totaling 70% of students taking at least some online courses."

This and other valuable data come from Phil Hill and his recent blog post looking at post-secondary online learning trends. The post has lots of additional valuable data that readers will find insightful.

Now let’s put this in K-12 terms and touch on why these data points are important.

The “33% of students in this period [who] took only online courses” is the post-secondary equivalent to the students in full-time online schools in K-12. Because there is no K-12 national source as good as IPEDS, we don’t know the number of students in all full-time online schools; we only know the number in schools that enroll students from across entire states. That number ranges from 0% in some states to a general high of around 3% in some states, with a possible outlier state at 4%. (We are gathering the latest data now and will release it in early 2024.) Nationally the number is between one and two percent.

This number does not account for district online programs that are enrolling students from within district boundaries. We are aware of only a few states tracking this number, and it’s not clear if these states are nationally representative. But it seems reasonable to believe that the post-secondary full-time online number is at least two to three times higher than the K-12 number.

The “further 37% [who] took a mix of online and face-to-face courses” is equivalent to the students taking teacher-led online courses while enrolled in a physical school. Again, in K-12 there isn’t a good data source for this number, but 37% is likely at least two to three times higher than the K-12 number.

There is a lot more to be said about these numbers in comparison to K-12 data, which we will revisit in our 2024 Snapshot and at DLAC.

The other valuable point about the post-secondary data is that students furthering their educations beyond high school are highly likely to be engaged in some form of online learning. The data from Phil Hill shows that the total percentage of students taking one or more online courses is 70% in the most recent data available--and this number is not likely to be highly inflated by the pandemic. In addition, note that these numbers are not touching on blended or hybrid schools or courses. Many post-secondary onsite classes and institutions are using technology at a level that would be considered the equivalent of highly innovative blended K-12 schools.

Most students are choosing online schools and courses for reasons related to scheduling flexibility, being able to move at their own pace, and life circumstances such as health issues. We don’t often hear of students choosing an online option to be better prepared for college. That’s probably not a good enough reason to choose an online school, but it might be a good reason to consider an online course.