Who Is Studying Online (and Where)

The number of college students enrolled in at least one online course -- and the proportion of all enrolled students who are studying online -- continued to rise at U.S. institutions in the 2016 academic year, newly released federal data show.

The statistics, part of a major release of provisional data on enrollments, employment and other topics from the Education Department's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, provide the most up-to-date information on enrollments in online and distance education.

The overarching story is a familiar one: even as overall enrollment in postsecondary institutions stays flat (unlike recent numbers from the National Student Clearinghouse, the federal data show enrollments staying roughly constant, not declining), online enrollments climb.

As a result, so, too, does the proportion of all students at institutions eligible to award federal financial aid who are taking at least one course at a distance, as seen in the table below.

The increased likelihood of being enrolled online is occurring at most levels and types of institutions in higher education.

Since 2014, the proportion of undergraduate students at Title IV-eligible institutions who are enrolled in at least one distance education course has risen from 27.1 percent to 30 percent in 2016, and the proportion of graduate students enrolled at least partially online has grown from 32.5 percent to 36.6 percent in 2016.

Community college students (30.9 percent) were more likely than undergraduates at four-year public institutions (29 percent) and four-year private colleges (25.6 percent) to be enrolled in at least one online course.

But more than two-thirds of the students taking at least one online course in 2016 were at public institutions, while roughly 18 percent were at private nonprofit colleges and 13 percent were at for-profit institutions. And the growth in the number of students taking at least one online course in 2016 was greater among public institutions than it was for private institutions, a change in the pattern of recent years.

Students at for-profit colleges were by far likeliest to be enrolled at a distance -- a full 57.5 percent studied at least partially online in 2016. But for-profit institutions as a sector continued to see a large overall drop in the number of students they enrolled (from about 1.54 million in 2015 to about 1.46 million in fall 2016), so the number of students enrolled online dropped, too.

Where Are They Enrolling?

Not surprisingly given that fact, for-profit institutions dominate the list of individual institutions that experienced meaningful drops in online enrollment from 2015 to 2016, led by the University of Phoenix, American Public University System and Kaplan University. Phoenix's drop was particularly stark -- more than 30,000 students.

But not all for-profit institutions had similar fates: Grand Canyon University grew by nearly 25 percent, and institutions such as Walden, Capella and Ashford Universities held steady or grew modestly.

The biggest gainers among nonprofit institutions were behemoths like Western Governors University and Arizona State University. A few, including Liberty University and Baker College, lost significant enrollments. (Note: The table below has been updated from an earlier version to correct some data.)