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Tag: big data

Fall 2017 IPEDS Data: New Profile of US Higher Ed Online Education
Update 19 Dec 2018: Images and interactive chart have been updated to fix mistake with sector of multiple institutions. Overall totals have not changed but allocations for each sector have. Thanks to reader Drew Bagley for discovering issue and even looking at data to point me in direction of fix. Post publish date has been updated accordingly.

The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) provide the most official data on colleges and universities in the United States. I have been analyzing and sharing the data since the inaugural Fall 2012 dataset.

Below is a profile of online education in the US for degree-granting colleges and university, broken out by sector and for each state for the most recent, Fall 2017, data.

Please note the following:
- There are multiple ways to filter and select data. For this set, I have limited to U.S. degree-granting institutions in six sectors – public 4-year, private 4-year, for profit 4-year, public 2-year, private 2-year, and for profit 2-year. For undergraduate totals I have included degree-seeking and non-degree-seeking students (degree-granting institutions can offer non-degree programs). Note that this will give different totals than what was reported in the NCES First Look report.
- For the most part distance education and online education terms are interchangeable, but they are not equivalent as DE can include courses delivered by a medium other than the Internet (e.g. correspondence course).
- I have provided some flat images as well as an interactive graphic at the bottom of the post. The interactive graphic has much better image resolution than the flat images.
- There are two tabs below in the interactive graphic – the first shows totals for the US by sector and by level (grad, undergrad); the second shows a map view allowing filtering by sector.
Here is the map view of state data colored by number of, and percentage of, students taking at least one online class for each sector. If you hover over any state you can get the basic data. As an example, here is a view highlighting New Hampshire institutions.

Interactive Graphic

For those of you who have made it this far, below is the interactive graphic, which can also be found here. Enjoy the data.
December 19, 2018
Fall 2017 Top 30 Largest Online Enrollments In US – With LMS Usage and Trends Since 2012
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) provide the most official data on colleges and universities in the United States. This is the sixth year of data on distance education enrollments, and we have an opportunity to view trends over time.

Let’s look at the top 30 online programs for Fall 2017 (in terms of total number of students taking at least one online course for grad and undergrad levels combined) in the US. Some notes on the data:
- The first view combines the categories ‘students exclusively taking distance education courses’ and ‘students taking some but not all distance education courses’ to obtain the ‘at least one online course’ category; the second view shows just the ‘students exclusively taking distance education courses’.
- Note that IPEDS captures distance education enrollment data based on Fall 20xx reports using a census date of October 15; this approach does not fully capture programs with multiple start dates throughout the year.
- IPEDS tracks data based on the accredited body, which can differ for systems – this data has combined most for-profit systems into one institution entity as well as Arizona State University and a handful of not-for-profit systems that operate as one entity.
- There is a new column this year showing changes in enrollment in each case between Fall 2012 and Fall 2017 data.
- Both views highlight for-profit institutions in yellow and added sparklines to help visualize trends. There has been a wave of for-profits converting in one form or another of not-for-profit institutions (e.g. Grand Canyon University, Kaplan / Purdue Global), but these conversions for the most part had not taken place as of the Fall 2017 reporting period.
- There is another new column this year showing which LMS is currently in usage at each of the schools listed, and in cases where there is a transition in 2018, both systems are shown with a direction > sign.
- See this post for Fall 2017 profile by sector and state.
Looking at the case where students exclusively take online courses in a distance education (DE) mode, we see some differences in the list with a greater concentration of for-profit schools.

Finally, it’s worth looking at the top 30 trend over time. Obviously the University of Phoenix is no longer the 800 pound gorilla in distance education, with two not-for-profits – Western Governors University and Southern New Hampshire University – poised to overtake Phoenix in the next year or two. This view also shows the tendency for most institutions to top out at approximately 60,000 students, but this may be changing with the three counter-examples above as well as Grand Canyon University.

Based on a reader request, I have added a Google Sheet for the data used above. There are tabs for Top 200 and Top 30 listings for each category (ALO and DE), but the LMS data was added manually and only available in Top 30.

Update 11/26: Fixed mistake in 2012-17% calculations, updated first two images. Added downloadable Google Sheet for data access.
November 17, 2018
Fall 2016 Top 20 Largest Online Enrollments In US – With Trends Since 2012
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) provide the most official data on colleges and universities in the United States. This is the fifth year of data, and we have an opportunity to view trends over time.

Let’s look at the top 20 online programs for Fall 2016 (in terms of total number of students taking at least one online course for grad and undergrad levels combined) in the US. Some notes on the data source:
- I have combined the categories ‘students exclusively taking distance education courses’ and ‘students taking some but not all distance education courses’ to obtain the ‘at least one online course’ category;
- IPEDS tracks data based on the accredited body, which can differ for systems – I manually combined most for-profit systems into one institution entity as well as Arizona State University;
- I have highlighted for-profit institutions in yellow and added sparklines to help visualize trends;
- See this post for Fall 2016 profile by sector and state.
One additional trend to capture is the dramatic change in the (previous) dominance of the University of Phoenix for overall and online enrollment. For perspective I have also labeled Western Governors University and Southern New Hampshire University.
January 15, 2018
Fall 2016 IPEDS Data: New Profile of US Higher Ed Online Education
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) provide the most official data on colleges and universities in the United States. I have been analyzing and sharing the data since the inaugural Fall 2012 dataset.

Below is a profile of online education in the US for degree-granting colleges and university, broken out by sector and for each state.

Please note the following:
- For the most part distance education and online education terms are interchangeable, but they are not equivalent as DE can include courses delivered by a medium other than the Internet (e.g. correspondence course).
- I have provided some flat images as well as an interactive graphic at the bottom of the post. The interactive graphic has much better image resolution than the flat images.
- There are two tabs below in the interactive graphic – the first shows totals for the US by sector and by level (grad, undergrad); the third shows a map view allowing filtering by sector.
There is also a map view of state data colored by number of, and percentage of, students taking at least one online class for each sector. If you hover over any state you can get the basic data. As an example, here is a view highlighting Virginia private 4-year institutions.

Interactive Graphic

For those of you who have made it this far, below is the interactive graphic, which can also be found here. Enjoy the data.
January 14, 2018
Fall 2014 IPEDS Data: New Profile of US Higher Ed Online Education
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) provide the most official data on colleges and universities in the United States. I have been analyzing and sharing the data in the initial Fall 2012 dataset and for the Fall 2013 dataset. Both WCET and the Babson Survey Research Group also provide analysis of the IPEDS data for distance education. I highly recommend the following analysis in addition to the profile below (we have all worked together behind the scenes to share data and analyses).
- WCET’s initial analysis of Fall 2014 data
- WCET’s comparison of Fall 2014 to past years
- BSRG’s annual report on distance education using Fall 2014 data
- WCET’s update on the data quality issues with IPEDS data
Below is a profile of online education in the US for degree-granting colleges and university, broken out by sector and for each state. (more…)
April 27, 2016
No Discernible Growth in US Higher Ed Online Learning

By 2015, 25 million post-secondary students in the United States will be taking classes online. And as that happens, the number of students who take classes exclusively on physical campuses will plummet, from 14.4 million in 2010 to just 4.1 million five years later, according to a new forecast released by market research firm Ambient Insight.

– Campus Technology, 2011

On the positive side, Moody’s notes that the U.S. Department of Education projects a 20-percent growth in master’s degrees and a 9-percent growth in associate degrees, opportunities in both online education and new certificate programs, and a rising earnings premium for those with college degrees.

– Chronicle of Higher Ed, 2014

Q. How likely would it be that this fraction [% students taking online courses] would grow to become a majority of students over the next five years? A [from institutional academic leaders]. Nearly two-thirds responded that this was “Very likely,” with an additional one-quarter calling it “Likely.” [That’s almost 90% combined]

– Grade Change, Babson Survey 2013

More than two-thirds of instructors (68 percent) say their institutions are planning to expand their online offerings, but they are split on whether or not this is a good idea (36 percent positive, 38 percent negative, 26 percent neutral).

– Inside Higher Ed 2014

Still, the [disruptive innovation] theory predicts that, be it steam or online education, existing consumers will ultimately adopt the disruption, and a host of struggling colleges and universities — the bottom 25 percent of every tier, we predict — will disappear or merge in the next 10 to 15 years.

– Clayton Christensen in NY Times 2013

You could be forgiven for assuming that the continued growth of online education within US higher ed was a foregone conclusion. We all know it’s happening; the questions is how to adapt to the new world.

But what if the assumption is wrong? Based on the official Department of Education / NCES new IPEDS data for Fall 2013 term, for the first time there has been no discernible growth in postsecondary students taking at least one online course in the US. (more…)

January 6, 2015
Fall 2013 IPEDS Data: New Profile of US Higher Ed Online Education
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) and its Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) provide the most official data on colleges and universities in the United States. Last year they released data on distance education (essentially online courses) starting with the Fall 2012 term. Last week they released new data for the Fall 2013 term. Below is a profile of online education in the US for degree-granting colleges and university, broken out by sector and for each state.

Please note the following:
- For the most part distance education and online education terms are interchangeable, but they are not equivalent as DE can include courses delivered by a medium other than the Internet (e.g. correspondence course).
- I have provided some flat images as well as an interactive graphic at the bottom of the post. The interactive graphic has much better image resolution than the flat images.
- There are three tabs below in the interactive graphic – the first shows totals for the US by sector and by level (grad, undergrad); the second also shows the data for each state; the third shows a map view.
- Please note that along with Russ Poulin from WCET we have identified some significant problems with IPEDS data validity – see this article for more information.
(more…)
January 5, 2015