Title: How Employers View Online Degrees: Interviews with Nine Hiring Executives
Headings: How Do Employers View Online Degrees?
How Do Employers View Online Degrees?
Meet the Interviewees: Nine CEOs and Executives
Employer Perceptions of Online Education
Positive perceptions of online degrees included:
Negative perceptions of online degrees included:
Positive Perceptions of Online Degrees
Negative Perceptions of Online Degrees
Conclusions: What to Consider Before Enrolling in an Online Program
Jocelyn Blore

Content: An oft-cited analogy is online dating, which had a scandalous reputation at its inception. Slowly but surely, however, as services multiplied and people started attending weddings of couples who met on the internet, that perception has evolved. Similarly, online degrees are gaining respect, especially among people with exposure either personally or through accounts of friends and family. One of the factors contributing to the increased exposure is the growing pool of distance-based students. In its annual survey titled Tracking Online Education in the United States (Feb. 2016), the Babson Research Group found that more than 25 percent of all students in higher ed were enrolled in at least one online course, and a total of 2.8 million students were enrolled in fully online programs. There’s been a trend toward not-for-profit and public institutions, which increased their online student enrollments 26 and 9 percent, respectively, between 2012 and 2014. During that same time, for-profit enrollments dropped 10 percent. One of the most striking findings in the thirteen years of this survey has been the shifting attitude within academia. In 2003, 57.2 percent of chief academic officers and leaders rated the outcomes of online education as the same (or superior) to traditional instruction; by 2015, this figure had swelled to 71.4 percent.