Online Schools

An online school teaches students primarily online or through the internet.

An online school (virtual school or e-school or cyber-school) teaches students entirely or primarily online or through the internet. It has been defined as "education that uses one or more technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and to support regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor synchronously or asynchronously". Online education exists all around the world and is used for all levels of education (K-12, college, or graduate school). This type of learning enables the individuals to earn transferable credits, take recognized examinations, or advance to the next level of education over the internet.

Virtual education is most commonly used for second, undergraduate, and graduate education. Students who are of the age 30 or older, tend to study on online programs at higher rates. This group represents 41% of the online education population, while 35.5% of students ages 24-29 and 24.5% of students ages 15-23 participate in virtual education.

Virtual education is becoming increasing used worldwide, as seen in the "Digital Learning Compass: Distance Education Enrollment Report 2017". There are currently more than 4,700 colleges and universities that provide online courses to it's students. In 2015, more than 6 million students were taking at least one course online, this number grew by 3.9% from the previous year. 29.7% of all higher education students are taking at least one distance course. The total number of students studying on a campus exclusively dropped by 931,317 people between the years 2012 and 2015."Experts predict that as the number of those studying in college continues to grow and diversify the student population, we'll see greater numbers enrolled in distance learning".