The proliferation of high-speed internet connections has established distance education a feasible option to traditional colleges. More agrestic districts apply video conferencing than urbanized or suburban districts, which rely heavily on the Internet. Indeed, students at the college and university level also rely entirely on the Internet.

An increasing minority of distance learning pupils are working professionals, people who work by day and attend classes at night, often only two or three times a week. The ease of online learning is very attractive to these students as they can successful shuffle work, friends, and classwork. Many well-respected universities offer degree levels including associate, bachelor, and masters degrees. Indeed, the majority of these institutions offer vocational and trades coursework also.

The Department of Education believes online and distant learning courses will more than double before 2020. The need to maintain expensive overhead, like campuses and cleaning maids, would become unnecessary, allowing funds to be transferred to the class and coursework level. The concern, as always, is the quality of the work. Distance students are encouraged to develop fruitful communications with other classmates, tutors, and teachers. Ms. Patrick said assessing the quality of instruction and coursework could be easier with electronic courses as many factors can be tracked, including the number of times students and teachers interact.