Slightly more than one in four college students took at least some of their courses online in the fall of 2012, according to data from the U.S. Department of Education.
The survey showed of the nation’s 21.1 million college students, 2.6 million, or 12.5% took classes exclusively online in 2012 while another 2.8 million, or 13.3%, took at least some of their courses online.
That left 74.2% of students who attended only traditional, on-campus college classes.
The survey also showed a larger percentage of graduate students took exclusively online classes compared to undergraduates.
The numbers came from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System survey that collected data on students in Title IV institutions for the fall of 2012. This is the first time the survey collected data on distance enrollment.
For-Profit at the Top
By far, private, for-profit institutions had the largest percentage of students taking all or part of their classes online.
This is especially true of students seeking four-year degrees at private, for-profit schools. The survey showed 61.3% of those students enrolled exclusively online. This compares to 11.9% of four-year students in private, nonprofit universities and 7.1% in public universities.
But the story was different for students seeking two-year degrees. While nearly 10% of students pursuing two-year degrees in public colleges took only online courses, it dropped to 5% at private, for-profit schools.
In all, enrollment for private, for-profit universities was about evenly split between students who attended only traditional brick-and-mortar classes and those who took at least some online courses. Slightly more than 1 million students took at least some classes online and 1.1 million, or 50.9%, took no online classes.
Geographic Divisions
Colleges in New England had the lowest percentage of students who took online courses with 15.5% of about 1 million students taking some online classes. The Southwest had the highest percentage of online students. In that region, 36.5% of students took at least some online instruction.
One of the most striking findings is Arizona where nearly 65% of college students took some online classes. For students who took only online courses, Arizona easily saw the highest number at 360,835 and highest percentage at 48.2%. Only 265,000 college students in the state took no online classes at all.
Only six other states in the fall of 2012 had a higher total college enrollment than Arizona, despite the state ranking 16th in population.
Rhode Island showed the lowest percentage of students taking online courses at 11.7%.
These are the top five states in total college enrollment and the percentage of students taking only online classes:
- California: 2.7 million students, 6.3% exclusively online
- Texas: 1.6 million students, 8.9% exclusively online
- New York: 1.35 million students, 6.1% exclusively online
- Florida: 1.2 million students, 16.1% exclusively online
- Illinois: 888,000 students, 10.1% exclusively online
The survey also showed 20,014 undergraduate students outside the United States took exclusively online courses at American universities and 13,549 graduate students outside the country were taking online classes in the fall of 2012.
The U.S. Department of Education said it intends to use this first survey that includes online higher education as a baseline for subsequent studies.
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