Online Ed's Return on Investment - Carl Straumsheim, Inside Higher Ed

The study, “The Returns to Online Postsecondary Education,” reads something like an indictment of online education. Written by Caroline M. Hoxby, the Scott and Donya Bommer Professor in Economics at Stanford University, the paper and its findings “provide little support for optimistic prognostications about online education.” Higher education researchers questioned its deviation from online enrollment numbers reported by the federal government’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Hoxby writes that, in 2013, the proportion of students taking all or a substantial number of their courses online totaled only 7 percent of postsecondary enrollment in the U.S. However, IPEDS data show 27 percent of all students took at least one online course in fall 2013, and 13 percent studied exclusively online. Russell Poulin, director of policy and analysis for WCET said “Even a quick check with one of the databases they did use … would show they are off on their counts and should have made them rethink their assumptions,” Poulin said in an email. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/02/28/working-paper-finds-little-return-investment-online-education