A new report released by market research firm Ambient Insight has found that the U.S. market for self-paced e-learning products and services in preK-12 education has increased 16.8 percent over the past five years.
The total e-learning industry—which includes health care, higher education, preK-12, nonprofits, and the government—totaled $18.2 billion in 2010 and is expected to rise to $24.2 billion in 2015, according to the report.
Growth in the preK-12 market has increased much faster than the total e-learning market. The report’s author, Sam S. Adkins, traces the increase to the launch of numerous virtual schools and subsequent dramatic increase in virtual school students, and to state budget cuts that have spelled cutbacks in summer school and in-class credit recovery classes in favor of self-paced online learning products and services.
Although the recession is driving schools to look for other solutions, it is also making schools’ investments in online learning products and services erratic, the report says.