Online learning or online higher education has always been steadily climbing the charts when it comes to being recognized a solution for students who live in rural areas. Online education also has benefited an amass amount of individuals who range from the ages of 5 to 65 who are looking to connect with teachers and other learners who need access to educational value.
What Are First Year College Students Focusing Their Energy On Nowadays
We will break down the statistical analysis that has become prevalent since 2021 into the 2022 academic year. As a matter of fact, top accredited universities are offering more virtual learning experiences than ever before, while some colleges solely exist online.
The total online degree statistical analysis has shown researchers that with a Bachelor’s degree time frame, many individuals are opting for the 18 month completion rather than the traditional 4-years it takes to acquire 120 credits. This shows us that students are more worried and precautious with their time than ever before.
Top Online Bachelor Degree Programs Include (according to U.S. News):
- University of Florida – Nursing, Business Administration, Psychology, and Public Relations have the most enrollments
- Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Worldwide – Aeronautics, Business Administration and Management, Aircraft Powerplant Technology, and Logistics have the most enrollments
- Medical University of South Carolina – Nursing has the most enrollments
- University of Illinois, Chicago – Nursing, Business Administration and Management, and Administrator have the most enrollments
- Oregon State University – Computer Science, Psychology, Natural Resources Management, and Human Development and Family Studies have the most enrollments
- Purdue University Global – Has equal enrollments across all subjects
- Southern New Hampshire University – Has equal enrollments across all subjects
- Ohio State University, Columbus – Nursing and Allied Health and Medical Assisting Services have the most enrollments
- CUNY School of Professional Studies – Nursing, Business, Psychology, and Information Sciences or I.T. has the most enrollments
- University of Arizona – Multi-/Interdisciplinary Studies, Psychology, and Science Technologies has the most enrollments
- Arizona State University – Liberal Arts and other sciences, nursing, psychology, and Organizational Leadership has the most enrollments
What is the average worldwide number of students that enrolled for a higher education via online learning?
According to a 2020 report that had statistical analysis from the prior academic year, with degrees varying from undergraduate to doctoral students, around an estimated 19 Million students are earning an online degree. This far exceeds what the original estimated amount was expected to be and has shown all institutions that are involved with higher education that their is a majority preference when it comes to flexible time schedules.
While the 19 Million student estimation only covers the United States, on a worldwide scale that number jumps to, for the year of 2022 the total number accounts for where a single online learning platform by the name of Coursera counted over 20 Million students. This is one platform with that high of a student population on a global scale.
In 2021 the worldwide estimation of online learners reached 92 Million, which means that in 2022 this number has jumped over the 100 Million count. This is well of 5% of the world population has chosen online degree earning and learning as their preference for a higher education.
What country has the most online learners?
There was a estimation breakdown to see where the most online students call home, and where the countries in the Asia Pacific saw one of the biggest jumps in higher education than in recent years. All followed by Africa, North America, Latin America and Europe. With the launch of many online MBA programs, Australia may enter this list soon. It is ultimately safe to say that online education is showing the way towards the future.
The Pros and Cons of Online Learning
It goes without saying that every new adventure has pros and cons, especially when it comes to technology. In 2022, thousands of parents who send their own children to public schools were notified that those public schools would be transitioning to an online friendly learning service. Ultimately, the parents were frustrated because not only do some parents not have the advantage of either staying home or hiring a babysitter, but this meant that their own child would receive less social interaction. And a child’s normal in-person interaction helps to develop social skills that they can not attain anywhere else. Another added con that parents had pointed out was that they have felt that the isolation their own child felt helped to influence a sudden progressive nature for their child to feel even more withdrawn from society.
However, Online Learning Is Trying to Adjust and Accommodate Everyone
With these heated comments being made, online education is looking to create dedicated time slots where children can interact either on a playground or all public schools can simply become a beacon for students to attend, learn on the computer, still develop needed daily social skills and not worry their parents by staying home all day.
What is the Current Largest Demographic of Students?
The latest online student trend shows the exact age range that is taking advantage of this flexible online quest, which falls between the ages of 25 to 29 years of age. Also, the studies have shown that more women are taking online classes rather than men. The biggest batch of students falls into what is called the “non-traditional student,” this means that a student who solely focuses on college, is considered a traditional student. A non-traditional student is someone that has a full or part time job, is married, has children, or older students that delayed their college experience because they had prior engagements.
With the age range of online students being 25 to 29 years of age, we are seeing a historic account of returning students to further their education. While the workforce continues to change and evolve, for the first time ever… we are seeing individuals head back to college to further their career in their already working field. This just shows us how the workforce and labor force is changing and evolving with the presence of artificial intelligence.
What are the Top Regarded Universities for Higher Online Education Learning?
With all of the 2022 academic lists now coming in which will determine which universities or institutions are fairing far better than others, we will now look at what colleges are expanding and fixing their online education programs to better fit all students.
Here is the overall list:
- University of London – Has 20 available online programs plus degrees
- UCL – Has over 30 online programs and degrees available
- Georgia Northwestern Technical College – Has 21 full online programs that help students achieve a Ph.D. degree online
- Ogeechee Technical College – Has 10 fully funded online programs available
- Carroll Community College – Has 10 fully funded online programs available
- Southern Crescent Technical College – Has 10 fully funded online programs available
- Southern Regional Technical College – Has 13 fully funded online programs available
- Columbia University – 12 full programs and degrees available, with business programs being the top enrollment
- John Hopkins University – Has available medical programs available from the top medical institution in the United States
- King’s College London – 25 full available online programs and degrees in subjects such as medicine and social services
- Northwestern University – 12 full programs available and they specialize in social science programs specifically
- The University of Manchester – 32 available full programs
- University of California, Los Angeles – Online engineering and STEM programs are available
- University of Texas at Austin – 10 available online programs that has degree earning potential all mainly involved with scientific A.I. sciences
- University of Birmingham – Has accredited 67 fully funded programs available with Humanities degrees, Online Social Sciences degrees, Online Education degrees, Online Graphic Design degrees
- University of Sheffield – Medicine degrees available online
- Georgia Institute of Technology – 21 fully funded business and engineering degrees available
- University of Glasgow – 22 online education, medicine, science, and business programs available
- University of Southampton – 12 online available degrees that fall under medicine, business, and computer science
- Boston University – 39 programs are readily available for subjects natural sciences, business, engineering, and social sciences
- University of Nottingham – 15 online programs are available for students with the majoring being in humanities and management
This is surely not the entire list, this is just a subtle example of what more well-known accredited colleges have to offer. Now, there are a multitude of institutions that are trying to catch up and benefit from the online higher education experience. Keeping this in mind, this means that virtually any college or vocational institution that has a website will be veering to offer higher education online rather than in-person classes. There is varied lists that are on the internet suggesting that online education can actually help private universities to become pubic institutions that could offer affordable degrees rather than the increased rates students have seen in the past.
Now, this allows students to start thinking about what type of student debt they could pay off in a few years time as far as online learning because the trusted and future avenue for everyone.
What Are the Best Online Master’s Programs Out There?
Since we are covering all routes when it comes to degrees, we will cover the varying levels of degrees available.
Master’s programs while attending in-person takes more than 4 years. This is a time frame students or individuals who have chosen to go back to school have thought about, over and over. How many individuals want to stick out 4-years of nothing but studying when the workforce changes on a yearly basis?
Leading us to check out what Master’s program subject fields are being seen as the top to apply for:
- Business administration
- Healthcare administration
- Engineering – in all varying fields
- Computer and information sciences
- Nurse anesthesia
- Human resources management
- Physician assistant
- Math
- Science
But what online schools have the best Master’s program’s located in these top fields:
- Columbia University in the City of New York
- Seton Hall University
- Norwich University
- National University
- University of Massachusetts – Amherst
- California State University-Northridge
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- University of Maryland – College Park
- Fordham University
- University of California – Berkeley
- Northwestern University
Students reading this may wonder way it’s the United States that is only listed for the Master’s program section. While, oddly enough when it comes to looking for a Master’s program the United States offers the most affordable yet informative and evolving Master’s programs in the world.
Now, let’s look at Ph.D. level programs available for online students and what schools are dedicated to the higher learning experience.
We will look at what top countries are considered the best of a Ph.D. degree:
- Israel
- Japan
- Australia
- Canada
- Russia
- United States
- United Kingdom
- Italy
- France
These selected countries are rated as the official top selected candidates when it comes to students looking to earn a Ph.D.
What Ph.D. online programs are available:
- Ph.D in Physics
- Ph.D in Engineering
- Ph.D in Physical Chemistry
- Ph.D in Pharmacology
- Ph.D Electrical Engineering
- Ph.D in Computer Science
- Ph.D in Organic Chemistry
- Ph.D in Chemical Engineering
- Ph.D. in Biology
- Ph.D. in Administration
- Ph.D. in Medicine
With this impressive list that covers a majority overall of all field subjects (engineering translates to all fields of engineering which would contain: automotive, software, computer, chemical, civil, and etc.) is just the beginning for the 2022 academic year.
The Essential Difference Between Online Learning and In-Classroom Learning
What happens when we compare both these settings, what are the difference and similarities that we can improve on as a society? One of the most talked about advantages that online learning allows is the access to textbooks and all materials on a 24/7. With in-classroom prosperities, this allows only the given 8 hour school day for anyone to compile a list of material they may need for a project of thesis. This means the student may experience far more mental stress than necessarily if they had access to a range of educational materials.
One faction that was eyed closely was the ratio between teachers and students. One reason in-classroom was targeted by online learning was that their were far too many students compared to teachers and additional staff. Since there is a teacher shortage around the world, this means that the in-person student/teacher ratio has grown. Meaning that students are not receiving the dedicated attention that is needed on subjects that student is having trouble with processing.
However, with online learning students are able to have a one-on-one teacher experience to ensure that they are finding all of the available content they need to learn about the subject.
The downside to online learning is the physical interaction that is acquired in, in-classroom education. There are adjustments being made to combat this lonely factor so younger students are fully able to cope with the natural work-life balance that appears in the 20 year stage of life.
Finding the Balances Is What Matters
Multiple articles and research has come out with statistics averaging on what type of demographic and students is attending online universities, what they are looking for, and simply why they have chosen to attend an online program. To simply put this, the average overall is women between the ages of 25 – 30 years of age that had to bypass college to raise a family or work for a dependent family member that may not be able to work themselves.
There was a separate statistic analysis that showed how family members were earning online educations so they could better take care of a family member that had a disadvantage or serious illness that caused them to not work at all.
Nevertheless, it goes to show how the world is shifting and shaping up to accommodate a computer A.I. technology. We see it in all of the news outlets online and even in person. The consist agreeable narrative is that higher education should be more affordable and readily accessible for everyone who may not have the advantage to live in a city or near town.
The Conclusion States that Online Degrees are Just as Comparative to In-Person Degrees
Maybe the biggest hurdle that is being discussed is that, are online degrees on the same wavelength or comparative road as in-person degrees? The discussion has come to this, can an individual who dedicated 18 months to earning a Bachelor’s degree learn the same amount of material that a student who attend on campus for 4 years? And the answer is, yes. Not only was the same material studied and read, but projects and available online work-studies were created from this research.
It was shared that no student should receive a lesser than degree in any field study subject. And that in-person or on-campus degrees mean the exact same as someone who has decided to go back after 10 year to earn their online Master’s degree. There is no difference, only that one student did not have to work or raise a family, while the other had to balance day-to-day life struggles.
As the world shows a raising interest in computer science and biomedical medicine, it has become highly important that online studies receives the same amount of justice and insight. Mainly because it’s the available online internet resources that allows software developers to continue developing online language’s and programming that pushes our world forward.
