As the job market grows softer and less nourishing than a jelly doughnut, reports show more people are returning to school to immunize their careers and feed their souls. But "school" is not necessarily the idyll of leafy campuses and long afternoons arguing philosophy in oak-paneled rooms.
Online education, long an ugly duckling of the ivory towers of the world, is coming into its swan years.
In its annual report on the state of online education, the Sloan Consortium reported in 2008 that online education continues to grow at a much faster rate than its brick-and-mortar competitors. Anecdotal evidence suggests that 2009's economic woes will only accelerate the pattern.
"We have seen our small university double in size this year," says Scott Stallings, director of marketing and admissions for California InterContinental University, a for-profit "distance education" university in Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County). "I believe this can be attributed to our low cost of tuition and the large influx of students who need their degrees to remain competitive."
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