Online Classrooms Are Booming

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Over 3 million students are earning college credits this year without attending class. About 10% of all students earn credit toward their degrees online, and 56% of all 2- and 4- year colleges and universities offer online courses. Schools offered 127,400 different distance-education courses in the 2000-01 school year, and 1,330 college-level degree and certificate programs are now designed to be completed entirely on line.

Active duty military recruits, stay-at-home mothers, and full-time employees complete their distance-learning courses, while schools increase enrollment and meet current facility costs despite facing government budget constraints.

Roseann Runte, president of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, presented the Virginia General Assembly with a $20 million proposal to add 10,000 students to the university's current enrollment of 20,105 over the next five years, primarily by expanding the statewide Tele-TechNet program. TeleTechNet offers distance-learning courses in partnership with the state's 23 community colleges.

The American Federation of Teachers acknowledges that "student and industry preferences certainly matter in designing curricula," but warns that "there is a real danger that curriculum will not be coherent, rigorous or broad enough to meet students' long-term interests."