Post-Pandemic, Online Ed Has “Staying Power”

The surge in online enrollment forced by the pandemic is leveling out. And the modality is now far more popular than it ever was during the 2010s, according to newly released federal data.

The Education Department published fall 2024 online enrollment data last month, covering more 5,615 institutions. The data shows nearly 54 percent of college students were taking at least some distance education courses during the fall of 2024, compared to about 53 percent in 2022 and 2023. Although online enrollment in 2024 was nowhere near as high as it was during the height of the pandemic—73.4 percent of college students took classes online in 2020—it’s still much higher than pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, just 36 percent of students were enrolled in some online courses.

“This data reinforces the idea that online is now strategic to institutional success,” Bruce Etter, senior director of research and consulting for the online and professional education association UPCEA, told Inside Higher Ed. “We were always heading in this direction. The pandemic didn’t create the trend, but it accelerated it and didn’t give ground back because learners decided that online education was still a high-quality experience with more flexibility.”

And while the latest federal data is already two years old, Etter said it’s still the most comprehensive data available and sets “baseline metrics” for the state of online education, which the federal Department of Education has tracked since 2012 through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. The growing appetite for distance education that it highlights tracks with more recent data: A report UPCEA published last month shows that the modality has become a “pillar” of the current higher education ecosystem, with 80 percent of the 169 chief online learning officers it surveyed agreeing that leaders at their institution have made online learning a strategic direction.

“Institutions know what learners want, and the IPEDS data and other data clearly backs that up, though they’re still struggling to actually offer it efficiently at scale,” Etter said. “But there’s very clear staying power here. These latest online enrollment numbers are the new floor.”

Although online enrollment has spiked across all institution types since 2019, private for-profit four-year universities continue to maintain the highest levels—as they have since 2012. In fact, 90.5 percent of students enrolled at such institutions were taking at least some classes online in fall 2024, the highest it’s ever been. “This is the University of Phoenixes of the world that saw online learning as a cash cow early on and focused their entire operation on it,” Etter said.

Second to those universities, public nonprofit colleges have maintained the highest levels of online enrollment following an initial dip after a pandemic-era surge. In fall 2024, 54 percent of students at four-year public colleges were enrolled in distance education courses, compared to 35 percent in 2019. Etter suspects that’s in part driven by the shrinking population of 18- to 22-year-olds across the country. “They’re seeing their traditional student base dwindle” and “online offers an alternative to themselves and to their potential students,” he said.

Meanwhile, private nonprofit universities are growing online enrollment more slowly. In 2024, 46 percent of students at such institutions were taking distance education courses, compared to 32 percent in 2019.

“In general, private colleges tend to be some of the institutions that very much maintain that they offer a residential experience, though that’s not true across the board,” Etter said. “There are plenty of privates who are doing lots of stuff online.”

Post-pandemic, undergraduates have nearly caught up with graduate student online enrollment numbers. In 2019, 42 percent of graduate students were taking distance education courses, compared to 35 percent of undergraduates. By 2024, 55 percent of graduate students were taking such courses compared to 53 percent of undergraduates.

And that trend, too, is in part driven by a need for colleges to attract more nontraditional college students.

“Historically, the online graduate space was for working professionals, and the undergraduate online space was more often for degree completers,” Etter said. “Institutions are now understanding that adult learners—the some college, no credential population—are of vast importance.” In addition, “even those traditional undergraduate students again want some level of flexibility with some online coursework,” he said. “Flexibility is a commodity now, and institutions that want to attract these students still need to be able to offer that.”