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There is still a lot of debate and conflicting research on whether online higher education is as effective academically as in-classroom instruction. For some institutions, however, online courses are filling a two-part void. A report on Education Dive noted a growing number of colleges are offering more online courses aimed specifically at nontraditional students. Those courses also are available to the colleges’ traditional-aged students, but the pool of new high school graduates has started to dwindle in line with the lower birthrate two decades ago. The online courses not only help to bolster enrollment numbers (and revenue) for the schools, especially community colleges, they also open up educational opportunities for adults with full-time jobs and family responsibilities. These older students are often unable to fit classroom courses into their schedules. The nature of online instruction also better enables colleges to adapt coursework to working adults’ needs, such as condensing...

The number of U.S. undergraduate students enrolled in at least one online class continues to grow, according to provisional federal data released in December. The statistics, from the spring 2017 data collection by the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), indicate that 31% of all students reported enrolling in at least one distance course, charting a steady rise from 24.8% in 2012. Those online enrollments keep growing while the IPEDS numbers show overall enrollment remaining fairly flat. Almost 31% of community college students enrolled in at least one online course, as did 29% of their counterparts at four-year schools. Unsurprisingly, students at for-profit colleges were the most likely to be enrolled in a distance course (57.5%). However, the for-profit sector overall saw enrollments drop from about 1.54 million students in 2015 to about 1.46 million in fall 2016. Some nonprofit institutions, on the other hand, experienced big gain...