An article in yesterday's The Arizona Republic discusses the surge in popularity of online learning offerings at local colleges and universities in Arizona, like the 25-year old master's degree student who traveled to Grand Canyon University's Phoenix campus from Pennsylvania to deliver the commencement speech to her fellow virtual classmates. Also mentioned was Arizona State University, who count residents of the Northeast, Midwest, as well as the far-flung Far East and Latin America as full-time online learners, and Northern Arizona University, who expects to offer over 700 courses to 30,000 students in the next five years.

Good observation: "Most people earning online degrees are older than 22, work full time and have families. They choose learning on the Web because they can sit at home and use their own computers rather than attend classes or rearrange their schedules." (emphasis mine.) Gee ... that sounds an awful lot like Steve, who is 44 and going back to school online for his associate's degree, and Melissa, an full time RN pursuing an online BS in Nursing, and Cookie, a 40-year old accountant who is attending University of Phoenix Online.

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