The Survey of Distance & Cyberlearning Programs in Higher Education, 2002 Edition

The Primary Research Group has released its fourth edition of the detailed survey of distance learning programs in higher education. Despite some setbacks in the mass marketing of distance learning programs, the survey results show continued astounding growth in the higher education distance learning market.

The mean annual enrollment growth rate for 2002 reported by the 75 college distance learning programs in the study was 41%, and 92% of programs sampled say that their enrollment growth rate has been either “very strong” or “fairly good.” Not a single college in the survey experienced a decline in total distance learning course enrollment.

The report explores myriad issues in distance learning programs in great detail: program growth rates, impact of economic conditions on growth, new emerging student demographics, cost of course development, cost of help lines, revenue impact of programs designed to meet professional continuing education requirements in healthcare, design & architecture, psychology and social work, law, information technology, engineering, finance and teacher education.

The study also looks at issues relating to copyright, broadband development and new technologies, teacher training, use of adjuncts, cost control, education materials acquisition strategies, and distance learning cooperatives and consortiums, marketing and advertising the DL program.

Data in the report is based on an extensive phone and mail survey of 75 randomly chosen established college distance learning programs. The report presents more than 350 tables of detailed data about the nation’s higher education-sponsored distance learning programs.

Among some of the Study’s findings:

• The program directors in the sample estimated that a mean of about 24% of their distance learning students had high speed bandwidth at home.
  

• Half of the programs in the sample offer courses from other colleges.
  

• The mean percentage increase in 2002 in the number of courses offered by the distance learning programs in the sample was 20.78% with a median increase of 15%
  

• A shade less than 30% of the programs in the sample have developed programs to meet professional continuing education requirements in healthcare, nursing or medicine. Almost 71% of programs in associate-level colleges offer distance learning courses to meet some of these requirements.
  

• The median cost of developing a distance learning course by the colleges in the sample was $3000.00.
  

• 37% of the programs in the sample increased tuition prices in the past year. While 61.64% held tuition constant. 1.37% of the programs in the sample decreased tuition.
  

• The median increase in tuition prices in the past year by the programs in the sample was 5%.
  

• The average per credit tuition cost for the distance learning programs in the sample was $202.70.
  

• About 45% of he programs in the sample had site licenses for some form of educational materials for use in the distance learning program.
  

• 41% of distance learning classes are taught by adjunct instructors.
  

• About 42% of the distance learning programs in the sample had their own course catalog separate from that of the main course catalog published by the college.

The report is available from Primary Research Group Inc. for $92.00 plus $7.00 dollars for shipping and handling, ISBN#: 1-57440-055-x.

For more information contact

Jim Moses

Phone: (212) 245-2327

850 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1200

New York, NY 10019.

http://www.primaryresearch.com