In our hectic, widespread world, it should come as no surprise that online education is growing in popularity. Some statistics may be surprising, though.

The 2005 edition of " Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the United States&lrquo; is the third annual report covering online higher education in America.

The Sloan Consortium provides highlights from this fascinating text:

Sixty-five percent of schools offering graduate face-to-face courses also offer graduate courses online. Among all schools offering face-to-face Business degree programs, 43% also offer online Business programs ... Staffing for online courses does not come at the expense of core faculty. Institutions use about the same mixture of core and adjunct faculty to staff their online courses as they do for their face-to-face courses. Instead of more adjunct faculty teaching online courses, the opposite is found; overall, there is a slightly greater use of core faculty for teaching online than for face-to-face. The evidence from higher education's academic leaders suggests that there is a strong trend upwards in considering online education as part of a school's long-term strategy. While there is some diversity in response to this question, there is growth among all types of schools:

Posted by Rhys Alexander