Online education a major factor in the rise of college enrollment in Connecticut

Online education a major factor in the rise of college enrollment in Connecticut

The state of Connecticut has recently announced that enrollment in public and private colleges and universities has grown by 3.6 percent this fall, partially due to the burgeoning online education sector, the Hartford Courant reports.

The college with the greatest increase in students state-wide is Post University in Waterbury, where enrollment has grown by over 53 percent.

University spokeswoman Kelly Statmore said that "the lion's share of the increase" in students this year is due to their emerging online education program.

"This is largely because a lot of working adults are looking for ways to get an education in a flexible fashion [at] night and on the weekends," said Statmore, quoted by the news source.

She said that the university's new masters degree in business administration was mostly responsible for the swell in online enrollment.

Today, over 3.5 million students are taking online courses and earning online college degrees. At the secondary school level, over 700,000 high school students are taking one or more courses online and nearly 40 states have established state-led virtual schools.