For years, higher education debated whether online learning was a temporary trend or a permanent shift. Much of that debate is over — but the real work to enhance online learning has just begun.
Today, according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), online learning in community colleges is down from its peak in the pandemic – when it was the only option – but remains a major part of the higher education landscape. And there’s no going back. Largely because that’s what today’s students want and need on the myriad of education and career journeys they take.
According to the PPIC, almost half of full-time community college students (43%) are enrolled in online courses. That’s down from 63% in 2021, but is a massive increase from 2019, when it was only 16%. It’s also almost the same as full-time students enrolled in in-person classes at 49%. And in a 2024 PPIC survey, nearly 60% of California’s community college leaders said they expected to offer almost half of their courses in online formats.
“In sum,online learning is here to stay,” The PPIC report concludes.
But that doesn’t always mean online courses are meeting the needs of the students taking them.
“(Q)uestions about the quality of online learning remain as students, administrators, and faculty experiences vary significantly,” the PPIC wrote. “A recent report found that online course-taking improved credit unit attainment and degree completion, though not higher transfer rates to four-year colleges. Another study highlighted gains in completion, narrowing the gap with in-person courses. But certain groups — younger, Hispanic, male, disabled, and military students — are less likely to enroll in online classes, suggesting that disparities in access among different student populations require attention.”
While the PPIC’s recommendations for addressing this are all good — emphasizing the need for “clear policies and strong digital literacy practices to help students and faculty use these tools effectively and responsibly, in every type of learning environment” — there’s a larger point that needs to be recognized: “online learning” is not just one thing. There are many different ways to teach online, just as there are many different ways to teach in person, and each kind has different strengths and benefits.
Further, different populations of students have different kinds of needs, and so they will benefit most from different kinds of online education. Figuring out what a student population needs is the most important step, and should determine what kind of online education is best. Or even whether online education is the right approach for them at all. Throwing people into online classes without considering their actual needs doesn’t help.
As Calbright’s President and CEO, Ajita Talwalker Menon, has said: “It’s not one-size-fits-all. Online education is a mode, it is not a model. We have to have new models, new approaches, new fully comprehensive ways of surveying different populations of learners, and that is key.”
When it comes to the question of whether online or in-person classes are “better,” a 2023 survey from Chronicle of Higher Education tells part of the story: online classes get their best results from students who are looking for online classes. In-person classes do better with students who want in-person classes. It seems obvious, even circular, to say, but it’s really true: Online education is best for people who want it.
This isn’t just a question of aesthetic preferences. Different kinds of online education can have particular advantages to meet different student needs. The Calbright model is designed specifically to meet the needs of adults with busy lives, such as parents or people with full time jobs. It is therefore flexibly paced, allowing students to study and take classes on a timeline that fits their lives. It is career focused, offering certificates in industry-valued skills that can be completed in a matter of months or a year, rather than making students complete full degrees that might not be as relevant for the jobs they want to get. And it is currently free for Californians, eliminating cost as a barrier to entry.
Those elements aren’t what every online education is – they’re designed around the specific needs of Calbright’s targeted population.
“When we talk about designing around student learner needs, that’s not our perspective on what those needs are – it’s data that comes from the learners themselves,” Menon said. “It can’t just be flexibly paced, it has to be connected to a priority and a value that they have, which is to be employable. So it has to be a skills based approach. And it had to be statewide and scalable.”
Other populations could be better served by different kinds of online learning. And students who are actively looking for the things that an in-person, classroom based, traditional education does well, will obviously be best served by a traditional, in-person, education.
So while “online learning is here to stay,” as PPIC notes, that’s just the beginning of the story. How we implement it, and for who, is the next important chapter.
