Conclusions

This report presents findings for the 12-month 1997–98 academic year about the status of distance education in all postsecondary education institutions. It also includes an analysis of trends in distance education since 1994–95 for the subset of higher education institutions. In the most general terms, it finds that distance education appears to have become a common feature of many postsecondary education institutions and that, by their own accounts, it will become more common in the future.

More specifically, this study found that about one-third of 2-year and 4-year postsecondary education institutions offered any courses through distance education during 1997–98, and that 25 percent of those that offered any courses through distance education also offered degree or certificate programs that could be completed entirely through distance education. Public institutions were also found to be more likely to offer distance education courses than private institutions. While institutions employed a wide variety of technologies to deliver distance education, more institutions were likely to employ several types of video and the Internetbased technologies than any other modes of delivery included in the survey.

There were an estimated 1,661,100 enrollments in distance education courses during 1997–98. The vast majority of these enrollments were in college-level, credit-granting courses, mostly at the undergraduate level. Institutions offered an estimated 54,470 different distance education courses in 1997–98. The largest number of courses were in English, humanities, and the social and behavioral sciences, and in business and management. The majority of postsecondary institutions charged students the same tuition and fees for distance education courses as they did for traditional on-campus courses.

Trend analyses reveal that the percentage of higher education institutions (a subset of all postsecondary institutions) offering courses through distance education grew by one-third from 1995 to 1997–98. The percentage of institutions offering such degree and certificate programs remained constant between 1995 and 1997–98. Between 1994–95 and 1997–98, the number of distance education enrollments and course offerings and the number of distance education degree and certificate programs approximately doubled. This suggests that the greatest growth in offerings through distance education at higher education institutions occurred not so much in terms of the percentage of institutions offering distance education, but rather in terms of the number of distance education course offerings and enrollments of those institutions that have been offering distance education since 1995.

While these findings will help to inform stakeholders—including individuals considering a postsecondary education, faculty and administrators at postsecondary institutions, providers of technologies used for distance education, and policymakers at federal, state, and local levels— they do not address many of the pertinent questions about distance education. As described in the introductory chapter, these questions include issues related to:

• equity of access to postsecondary education;
• the costs of developing and implementing distance education programs;
• accreditation of and quality assurance in distance education programs;
• copyright and intellectual property rights;
• changes in the role of postsecondary faculty and challenges facing them as a result; and
• pressures on existing organizational structures and arrangements.

Given rapidly evolving societal and institutional trends brought about by changes in technology (e.g., Carnevale 1991; Kelly 1998; Sherron and Boettcher 1997), research on distance education will continue to face fundamental challenges. These challenges include evolving conceptions and definitions of distance education²⁶ and the rise of nontraditional arrangements of postsecondary education institutions and programs, including the rise of virtual universities. Other basic challenges facing those conducting research on distance education include the need to respond to the information needs of stakeholders in a timely manner. In this ever-changing environment, anecdotal data often must suffice until more comprehensive studies can be conducted—studies that remain relevant for only brief periods. It is a dynamic time for postsecondary education institutions facing the opportunities and challenges brought by technological innovation. As Gladieux and Swail (1999) assert, given the fact that computer and related technologies are evolving so quickly—and new providers and brokers of higher education proliferating so rapidly—no one knows how traditional higher education will change.

²⁶ For example, a definition has recently been developed through the 1998 passage of P.L. 105-244, Amendments to the Higher Education Act of 1965. This set forth a new legislative definition of distance education (Title IV, Part G, Section 488): "the term 'distance education' means an educational process that is characterized by the separation, in time or place, between instructor and student. Such term may include courses offered principally through the use of (1) television, audio, or computer transmission, such as open broadcast, closed circuit, cable, microwave, or satellite transmission; (2) audio or computer conferencing; (3) video cassettes or discs; or (4) correspondence."

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