Online Learning: What College Presidents and the Public Think About Its Future

Students are plugging in, online courses are filling up, and walls are coming down. Online learning is going mainstream, but the debate over quality shows no signs of dying down, according to two major surveys of college presidents and Americans by the Pew Research Center and The Chronicle of Higher Education. The public, in particular, questions whether students engage as effectively online as in a brick-and-mortar classroom. Among presidents, leaders of two-year colleges are the most bullish on the future of online education; presidents of four-year private colleges are the most skeptical.