COVID-19's Ultimate Impact on Online Learning: The Good and the Bad

Higher education's current move to online learning may be leaving a sour taste in the mouths of students and faculty across the country, but there is a silver lining.

student working on computer

As colleges and universities have shuttered their physical campuses in the face of the spread of COVID-19, they have moved their courses to remote and online formats in rapid fashion. And that's prompted many to wonder what the ultimate impact this period of time may have on online learning in higher education.

Based on the present situation, where individuals come to stand on online learning will depend on where they sit currently. That is, there will be both positive and negative impacts on the state of online learning in higher education.

The Bad

On the bad side, given that college and university faculty hastily moved courses online without much support, online learning is being done poorly in many quarters of the United States. It's consequently getting a bad reputation at many campuses.

Students are voicing their disgruntlement in a variety of ways, including asking for refunds. Some students have even gone as far as filing class action lawsuits seeking money back.


Faculty members who have struggled in the online environment and haven't received enough support from their college or university are unlikely to have much enthusiasm for online learning in the future. Even in cases where teaching and learning centers on campuses intervene and help build the courses, they are likely overstretched at the moment, and so many courses have been poor substitutes for the originals (even if the originals weren't terribly inspiring).

When colleges eventually resume physical instruction, many will breathe a collective sigh of relief and resume their studies as usual. It's unlikely they will look back fondly on their online experiences and wonder why it is that they ever dragged themselves to a classroom in the first place.

Where Online Benefits

But that's not the whole story.

If the closure of physical campuses continues into the fall, some residential students and their parents will start asking why they should pay large tuition bills for an in-person experience they are not receiving. If they are going to be learning online anyway, why not opt for a provider that has strong experience with online learning and that can offer it more affordably than can a traditional college or university?

Those institutions with robust online learning programs — particularly if they are more affordable than a traditional program — will stand to gain ground. Online learning will grow from where it was pre-COVID-19, when already over a third of postsecondary students took at least one online class and roughly 30 percent of graduate students studied exclusively online. Mega-universities that offer affordable programs, such as Western Governors University and Southern New Hampshire University, will grow. Places like Arizona State University that offer robust online programs as well as in-person ones and can offer the potential for seamless transfer between the two are also likely to benefit.


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