Location, Location, Location: Why It Still Matters for Online Learners

Advances in online education have made it possible for anyone with a computer, Internet access, and a healthy helping of self-discipline to learn virtually anytime, anywhere. According to the United States Department of Education, at least 22 states offer some form of public virtual school instruction, and about a quarter of the country’s K-12 brick and mortar public schools have embraced it as well.

But it remains that postsecondary education is unquestionably leading the way. The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), an organization dedicated to the improvement of online study, estimates that 90 percent of all colleges in the United States provide eLearning offerings. Why then have these offerings not seen a universal blanket of usage? Evidence of students and administrators embracing online learning seem to be geographically staggered, cite Sloan-C stats. Why is eLearning thriving in some areas of the country and others less so?

Geography matters

Distance learning, as is implied by the name itself, has everything to do with bridging that gap between where you are and where the educational resources exist. A brief look at the origins of some of these off-campus methods help explain what areas of the country traditionally gravitate toward eLearning, patterns which by and large still hold true today. "Some of the earliest adopters of online learning in North America came from agricultural extension agents, who lived way out in rural areas," explains Ellen Wagner, the senior director of worldwide eLearning for Adobe, a prominent technology and software company. "In the earliest days, when the coursework was really quite primitive by today's standards, students' willingness to put up with fairly dreadful online experiences was mitigated by the fact that they didn't have to leave their homes and move 300 miles away to the closest university or college."

Today, with significant improvements in the power and effectiveness of learning technology, one thing remains a focal point: Despite location, students, administrators, and even federal officials, are working to ensure that every resource available in urban areas is offered within rural areas as well.

"We have found that many rural districts had the technology infrastructure that urban areas did not," says Marcia Foster, director of product development at PBS TeacherLine, which provides online professional development courses for K-12 teachers. "The access to technology compensates for the isolation experienced in more rural areas."

In addition, the Department confirms Foster’s observations, claiming 46 percent of districts in rural areas had students enrolled in K-12 distance learning courses, whereas suburban and urban locations only had 28 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

Southern states lead the charge

By far, a look at enrollment trends shows southern regions of the country leading the way; more students are taking online courses in the 16 member states of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) than ever before, according to "Making The Grade," a report SREB published in partnership with Sloan-C. More than 1.1 million students were enrolled in online classes at two- and four-year colleges in SREB states in 2006, a 68 percent increase over the previous year. Perhaps more striking, these figures are nearly double the 35 percent national gain.

"The southern states have been at the high end of enrollment since we started measuring [distance learning growth] four years ago," says Elaine Allen, co-author of the report. "One reason may be the strength of the SREB supporting and transferring knowledge and practice in online learning. Also, Florida State University was an early adopter of online learning and may have played a part as a flagship in the southern states."

But getting a head start and strong support from the SREB only accounts for a part of the area's affinity to distance learning. Much of the excitement and curiosity surrounding online learning is facilitated by administrators, two-thirds of whom rate online student experiences equal to, if not greater than, those garnered in the classroom.

"From our analysis, administrators play a role by making online education part of their long-term strategy at a higher rate than other regions, and are also quite positive about the quality of online courses and programs," explains Allen. "These attitudes probably foster more development. Given the huge growth, students are clearly satisfied."

A craving for campus

Despite such satisfaction, students are not succumbing to their need for some element of campus-based studies, however. Nearly two out of every three online students live within the geographical region of their institution, cites "Making the Grade," with more than one-third within a 50-mile radius of their online school. According to research by Eduventures, the leading research company for the education market, the physical proximity of online students to their virtual institutions is not coincidental. Of consumers willing to consider an online program, 63 percent prefer an online provider to have some physical presence within their state.

Explanations for this academic attachment anxiety vary, say experts. "Some of that has merely to do with more online education leaning toward a blended model (a combination of online and campus-based instruction)," says Liz Pape, president and CEO of Virtual High School, a nonprofit consortium that provides online learning for more than 6,000 students and online course design for 268 schools in 29 states and 24 countries. "If the students can meet the professors and each other for a kickoff meeting and touch base a few times midway, it greatly helps the completion rate."

Pape is quick to dispel any notions that these stats might speak to student reluctance or uncertainty about the online learning model. "I don’t think it has anything to do with doubt," she says. "It simply speaks to the youth of online learning, which has only been around 11 years."

Brent Richardson, chief executive officer of Grand Canyon University, a largely online private institution in Phoenix, acknowledges the skepticism factor. "I think online students sometimes prefer a school that has a physical campus, as opposed to an entity that exists only in cyberspace, even if they never set foot on that campus," he says. "It somehow feels more real." However, Richardson speculated that the largest reason would be brand recognition -- students feeling like they already know the schools in their area, as well as people who have attended.

Projections for the future

Will the rest of the country eventually catch up to the southern states? According to Allen, we're years away from reaching an equilibrium. "The first three years of our survey we saw growth in the 20-25 percent area -- last year it was 37 percent," she says. "There does not seem to be a plateau yet."

And though Allen further asserts that no region in the country is remotely comparable to the south’s growth, Wagner adds that catching up is inevitable for the trailing sectors. "The more we all become more comfortable with the fact that the combination of the physical world and the virtual world constitutes the real world of today, the more everyone will see eLearning as just one more way of connecting with education experiences -- wherever they happen to be located."