What is Percent of Students That are Now Taking Online Classes?
- Aug 10, 2010 ArchiveWhat the percentage of students are taking online courses as compared to the conventional classroom. In actuality, I have no real idea but here is what I do know:
1.One example of the increase in online course offerings in real estate is our own real estate school. Our real estate school used to provide only in-class courses now our entire real estate license course offering is by distance learning only. Our whole business plan has changed over the years.
2. Just a few years ago there were no distance learning real estate schools now some of the biggest schools in the country are distance teaching real estate schools, where their total business plan is only providing online courses. Some of these schools are only resellers of major providers of online courses, but use their knowledge and know how to acquire organic presences on Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
3. The percentage of students taking real estate continuing education and post license course is up tremendously. I would say, 60% of all post license courses are now taken online today where as seven years ago, none were.
Another aspect of online courses is the variety of methods of presentation of online courses, some just have the textbook online, some have a video presentation and quizzes and some have a variety of both methods. A few schools offer the paper textbook with the course and some provide a textbook in a PDF format.
With the variety of options as technology improves, more and more students will be taking the online courses. One thing for sure, the real estate school business is in total flex and some schools that are here today might not be here tomorrow.
The profitability of on line schools compared with conventional real estate schools, are coming more and more into play. Today, there are online real estate schools that have been able to create huge profit margins because they dont have the brick and mortar buildings and have far less staff. Plus, the availability of capturing students looking for an in class course is a lot less than it used to be and so the schools have far less margins to work with.
Frank L. Cooke, Jr.
President
Cooke Real Estate School