A new study from the Sloan Consortium, Five Years of Growth in Online Learning, shows that online student enrollments are growing faster than overall higher education enrollments. Here's a blurb:

"Online enrollments have continued to grow at rates far in excess of the total higher education student population, albeit at slower rates than for previous years.

* Almost 3.5 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2006 term; a nearly 10 percent increase over the number reported the previous year.

* The 9.7 percent growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the 1.5 percent growth of the overall higher education student population.

* Nearly twenty percent of all U.S. higher education students were taking at least one online course in the fall of 2006."

The study does indicate that this type of growth can't go on forever. However, it's clear that online learning is continuing to gain popularity and wide-scale acceptance.