Online Education Trends Report
2025

Online Education Trends Report

BestColleges' 11th annual Online Education Trends Report provides the latest online learning experience data with insights from students and school administrators.

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Report Overview

This is the 11th annual BestColleges Online Education Trends Report. It is part of an initiative to track long-term trends in online learning. This is our ninth year of original data collection through two online surveys — this year's respondents include 1,000 online college students and 74 college and university administrators. Findings are presented in six categories: student demographics, the online learning experience, marketing and recruiting, online student satisfaction, artificial intelligence, and planning for the future.

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Key Findings

The Online Learning Experience

  • 34% of responding students chose to enroll specifically online to allow more flexibility with their time and schedules.
  • Paying for higher education while minimizing student debt and balancing education with work, family, and household obligations continue to be the biggest challenges and concerns among online students.
  • 43% of online students report being able to integrate their current jobs and career exploration into their class assignments.

Marketing and Recruiting

  • A majority (57%) of prospective students identified tuition cost and program fees as their biggest challenge when choosing an online program.
  • Students primarily rely on college websites (43%), online reviews from students (29%), and websites or publications that rank schools (26%) to research and compare the online programs they are considering (or considered).
  • While a majority of online program graduates (53%) applied to only one or two programs, 27% wish they had compared more schools.

Online Student Satisfaction

  • 90% of online program graduates say their degree has or will have a positive return on investment.
  • 98% of all students surveyed — current, prospective, and graduates — say they would recommend online education to others.
  • 76% of all students surveyed say that online education is better than or equal to on-campus learning.

Artificial Intelligence

  • A majority of responding school administrators agree that AI is a beneficial innovation (72%) and can personalize the learning experience for online students (64%).
  • 60% of currently enrolled online students have used AI tools to complete assignments or exams, and an equal number say their schools provide guidance about AI use.
  • Almost half (47%) of all students surveyed say they would trust colleges to use AI tools to process and sort through college admission applications, while 44% said they would trust colleges to use AI tools to help make college admission decisions.

Planning for the Future

  • Most school administrators (68%) shared that their institutions are either decreasing or not changing their budget for online program development in the coming year.
  • 79% of graduates feel that their online programs prepared them well for their first job after graduation.
  • About half of all students surveyed, including currently enrolled students (54%) and prospective students (51%), feel that it will be very important for them to continue their education beyond their online programs.

Media Mentions

Online Learning Consortium (OLC)United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA)DT&L Conference

Our Research Methodology

We help make sense of the latest trends through our proprietary research, data analysis, and expert insights. Our Trends Reports, Survey Reports, and Data Reports explore pressing issues, such as online learning, student demographics, and the rising cost of college.

How We Collect Data

BestColleges collects data through online surveys. Some data is collected by our outreach team using platforms such as Qualtrics. We also partner with survey providers, like GLG Research and YouGov LLC, to reach broader audiences of college students, business leaders, and adults in the U.S. Partners use screening tools like RelevantID and manually review data for consistency and accuracy.

How We Find Survey Participants

Our outreach team uses BestColleges' contact mailing lists to encourage participation in relevant surveys. Our survey partners use a census-based quota sampling approach to provide a sample that represents the U.S. population through their expert and panel networks. Additional quotas are also implemented to ensure samples include gender and racial diversity.

Are Survey Participants Compensated?

Participants responding to our outreach team's survey requests are not compensated. However, some of our survey partners and their panel and expert networks do compensate participants in different ways.

Our Knowledge and Authority

Our surveys are designed by an in-house team with expertise in academic and market research, data analysis, and editing. Surveys conducted through our partners are additionally reviewed by their quantitative research experts. Since 2016, BestColleges Research has provided insights to higher education stakeholders through a variety of publications and conference presentations.

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