FIU Data reports increased enrollment in online courses

Andres Davila | News Director

Even after the pandemic, enrollment for online courses has been increasing since 2020, according to the FIU Accountability Dashboard.

A report on online enrollment status demonstrated that for the spring 2024 semester, around 67% of students are taking online courses, which includes at least one percent of term credit hours being online. That is a 2% increase from last spring semester, with 65% of students enrolling in online courses, and a 3% increase from the spring 2021 semester.

As for the fall semesters, percentages are higher than pandemic levels. As for the fall 2023 semester, 65.50% of students are reportedly enrolled in online courses, a 5.40% increase from the fall 2020 semester and a 0.2% increase from the fall 2021 semester.

The data includes students in a fully online program and a hybrid schedule. Despite the increase in online course enrollment, there is a decrease in fully online students, compared to pandemic levels.

For the fall 2020 term, around the peak of the pandemic, 58,928 students were fully online, with 51,811 being outside of the FIU Online programs. As of the fall 2023 term, the number diminished to 54,037, resulting in an 8.3% decrease in fully online enrollment.

For FIU Online, the decrease in fully online status is fine regarding the purpose of the online-instructed degree programs.

“FIU’s fully online programs serve to supplement the degree portfolio of our community-rooted institution, we are one modality among many serving our student body,” said Gabriela Icabaleta, director of Academic Support Services for FIU Online, in an email to PantherNOW.

“The fluctuation of exclusively online enrollment numbers isn’t the sole metric by which our division measures its success.”

FIU Online has been pioneering towards success as they recently got ranked number 2 of best online information technology degree programs by Cybersecurity Guide, a resource dedicated to cybersecurity education and career. 

The ranking reflects one of the popular online degree programs FIU Online has to offer.

“Our priority is always to complement FIU’s mission ‘to serve students and the diverse population of South Florida’ in our capacity to expand access to students who need it,” said Icabaleta.