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\n\t\tOpinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.\t<\/p>\n
The growth of online higher education in the United States is producing more than a new delivery format. It is creating a new set of institutional models, each designed around a different student population.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Western Governors University (WGU), founded in 1997, built its model around online, competency-based education and working adults. Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), which began offering online programs in 1995, has expanded its reach to more than 170,000 online learners. University of the People, founded in 2009, took a different approach, building a nonprofit, tuition-free online university.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the same time, established institutions have created large digital extensions of their traditional campuses: Penn State launched World Campus in 1998, while Arizona State University has developed ASU Online into a major national platform. The emergence of these institutions points to a broader change in higher education: universities are increasingly being designed around the needs of specific student populations rather than a single traditional college experience.<\/p>\n
One of the clearest markets these institutions are serving is the growing population of adult learners, students who are balancing education with work, family and existing career commitments, and therefore have very different expectations from a traditional college experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 2026 CAEL-CollegeAPP study<\/a> found a substantial pool of potential adult learners in the U.S., 27% of adults between 25 and 64, roughly 41.7 million people, said they plan to pursue education or training within the next two years. But their circumstances are different from those of traditional college-age students.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cost was a concern for 81% of respondents, while 67% pointed to limited time, and 43% were primarily interested in developing skills they could apply to their current careers. For this population, higher education has to work around existing professional and personal commitments, helping explain the growing appeal of flexible and online learning models.\u00a0<\/p>\n In other words, online education is not producing one alternative to the campus-based university; it is enabling universities to experiment with different combinations of flexibility, affordability, academic structure, student support and career relevance.\u00a0<\/p>\n The size of the market helps explain why this experimentation has accelerated. According to the National Center for Education Statistics report<\/a>, in fall 2024, more than 10.8 million U.S. students were enrolled in at least one distance-education course, including approximately 5.2 million students who studied exclusively through distance education.\u00a0<\/p>\n The growth of online education cannot be explained by technology alone. Students have changed, too. More people are balancing college with jobs, families and other responsibilities. Part of the reason is that the student sitting in a university classroom today may not fit the traditional model the institution was built around.\u00a0<\/p>\n A 19-year-old entering college directly from high school has different constraints from a 35-year-old balancing a full-time job, a family and a career transition. For the latter, spending another semester sitting through material they already understand may be less valuable than demonstrating mastery and moving on. This is one reason competency-based models have gained attention: they create the possibility of organizing education around what a student knows and can demonstrate, rather than simply how long they have spent in a course.<\/p>\n Institutions are under pressure to find new sources of enrollment, while students are asking harder questions about the cost of a residential degree and the value it delivers. At the same time, demand for career-focused education is growing, particularly among adults who are returning to school to advance or change careers.<\/p>\n That is what makes the rise of online universities so interesting. This is not simply a story about moving lectures from classrooms to screens. It reflects a broader shift in what students expect from a university and what universities must offer to remain relevant. The institutions gaining ground are not necessarily trying to replicate the traditional college experience online. Many are rethinking the experience itself, building different models around different students, their circumstances and what they want from higher education.<\/p>\n For decades, higher education has had a relatively straightforward way of measuring progress: credit hours. Take the course, complete the required hours, pass the assessment, collect the credits and move closer to a degree. But the world outside the university does not necessarily work that way. Employers rarely hire someone because they have accumulated 120 credits. They hire them because they can analyze data, manage a project, write effectively, solve a problem or perform a particular job. That disconnect is forcing universities to reconsider a deceptively simple question: Should a degree tell us how long someone studied, or what they can actually do?<\/p>\n The interest in skills-based education suggests that many institutions are beginning to wrestle with that question. A 2023 survey<\/a> by CAEL, The EvoLLLution and Modern Campus of 144 higher education institutions found that 86% believed postsecondary education should be designed around well-defined skills and competencies relevant to today\u2019s workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n Yet only 22% had fully implemented skills-based frameworks across all their programs, while another 44% had implemented them in some courses or programs. That gap is revealing. Universities appear increasingly convinced that skills matter, but translating that belief into curriculum, assessment and credentials is proving considerably more complicated.<\/p>\n There is another force pushing this shift: employers are becoming a more visible part of the conversation. The same CAEL study found that 85% of institutions communicate with employers about their skill needs. That does not mean universities should become job-training centers or redesign every program around today\u2019s vacancies.\u00a0<\/p>\nDistance or online learning on an exponential rise<\/h2>\n
The growing push to make college about skills, not just credits\u00a0<\/h2>\n