Who's up and who's down in online enrollments?

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The newly released Digital Learning Compass contains a wealth of data about the state of online education in the United States. An earlier article in Inside Digital Learning and a new article this week in Inside Higher Ed explored some of the highlights of the report, a product of the Babson Survey Research Group, e-Literate and WCET.

In this article, we dig into institution-level data in online enrollments. The Digital Learning Compass, which analyzes federal data from the Education Department's Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, includes tables showing the 50 colleges and universities with the largest number of students taking at least one online course in both 2012 and 2015, the latest year available.

In the table below, Inside Digital Learning looks at how the online enrollment landscape has shifted in the last few years -- who is ascendent, who is losing ground and who is holding their own.

Patterns Emerge

Not surprisingly, given the seismic shifts in the economy and intensified government regulation, many of the biggest declines were at for-profit institutions, starting at the top. The University of Phoenix retained its status as having the largest online enrollment from 2012 to 2015, but it lost nearly 100,000 students, more than a third of its overall enrollment. Ashford University, part of Bridgepoint Education, suffered a 45 percent decline in its online enrollment over that period, dropping to 11th from second in 2011.

A few other for-profit colleges showed growth -- Chamberlain College of Nursing nearly doubled its online enrollment, Grand Canyon experienced a nearly 24 percent increase and Walden University grew by 5 percent. Several others dipped only modestly, like Colorado Technical University, Capella University, Kaplan University (which agreed last week to be sold to Purdue University) and American Public University System.

Many of the other big enrollment losers from 2012 to 2015 were community colleges. Ivy Tech and Northern Virginia Community College both lost at least a third of their online enrollments, and where 15 two-year institutions were represented in the top 50 in 2012, that number was down to eight in 2015: Ivy Tech, Lone Star College System, Houston Community College, Valencia College, St. Petersburg College, College of Southern Nevada, Northern Virginia Community College and Cuyahoga Community College.

The biggest gainers, meanwhile, were mostly private nonprofit institutions. Western Governors University, which kicked into another gear in growth in the late 2000s, moved from 10th to third with an online enrollment gain of 70 percent. Southern New Hampshire University's nearly 400 percent increase in digital enrollment skyrocketed it from 50th place to fourth, and Brigham Young University-Idaho more than doubled its online enrollment to move from 45th in 2012 to 14th in 2015.

The other noteworthy category of institutions were the public universities, mostly in the Sun Belt, that saw their online enrollments swell as they grew generally. California State University-Northridge (151.6 percent increase), Florida State University (79.7 percent), Texas Tech University (191.6 percent), the University of Iowa (217 percent) and the University of Texas at Arlington (75.8 percent) were among them.

One caveat about the numbers below, to ward off some potential confusion: The table appears to show Arizona State University losing significant online enrollment, down about 36 percent from 2012. But the table also shows another Arizona State campus, its innovation campus called Skysong, with 19,000-plus students compared to none in 2012. An Arizona State spokesperson explains that the university in 2013 began reporting its online enrollments separately by campus, and that the university's total online enrollment in 2015 was 52,490, which would place it seventh among all institutions.

Top 50 Institutions by Online Enrollments (Students Taking at Least One Class) in 2015

2015 Rank	Institution	2015 Online Enrollment	2012 Online Enrollment	2012 Rank	% Change
1	University of Phoenix-Arizona	162,003	256,346	1	-36.8%
2	Liberty University	72,519	69,935	3	3.7%
3	Western Governors University	70,504	41,369	10	70.4%
4	Southern New Hampshire University	56,371	11,286	50	399.5%
5	Grand Canyon University	54,543	44,006	7	23.9%
6	Walden University	52,799	50,209	5	5.2%
7	American Public University System	52,361	58,115	4	-9.9%
8	University of Maryland-University College	48,677	42,165	9	15.4%
9	Kaplan University-Davenport Campus	45,268	46,374	6	-2.4%
10	Excelsior College	43,123	39,728	11	8.5%
11	Ashford University	42,046	76,722	2	-45.2%
12	Capella University	34,365	35,754	13	-3.9%
13	Ivy Tech Community College	34,103	42,821	8	-20.4%
14	Brigham Young University-Idaho	33,551	11,763	45	185.2%
15	University of Central Florida	33,034	21,782	20	51.7%
16	University of Florida	28,838	23,180	18	24.4%
17	Florida International University	26,341	25,028	16	5.2%
18	Arizona State University (main)	22,809	36,095	12	-36.8%
19	Colorado Technical University	22,757	22,608	19	0.7%
20	Chamberlain College of Nursing	22,114	11,096	n/a	99.3%
21	Lone Star College System	21,811	18,602	25	17.3%
22	University of South Florida (main)	20,993	16,241	30	29.3%
23	Columbia Southern University	20,823	19,933	23	4.5%
24	DeVry University	20,458	21,616	21	-5.4%
25	Full Sail University	19,939	23,486	17	-15.1%
26	Houston Community College	19,111	17,524	26	9.1%
27	Arizona State University (Skysong)	19,094	0	N/A	n/a
28	University of Texas at Arlington	17,541	9,975	n/a	75.8%
29	Valencia College	17,216	13,985	34	23.1%
30	American College of Financial Services	16,764	0	n/a	n/a
31	St. Petersburg College	16,501	16,669	28	-1.0%
32	California State University-Northridge	16,130	6,412	n/a	151.6%
33	College of Southern Nevada	14,906	13,270	35	12.3%
34	Texas Tech University	14,826	5,085	n/a	191.6%
35	Pennsylvania State University (main)	14,355	13,238	36	8.4%
36	University of Cincinnati (main)	13,992	9,424	n/a	48.5%
37	Kent State University	13,754	10,159	n/a	35.4%
38	Northern Virginia Community College	13,421	19,152	24	-29.9%
39	Utah State University	13,360	10,232	n/a	30.6%
40	Thomas Edison State University	13,093	20,456	22	-36.0%
41	University of Houston	12,961	10,834	n/a	19.6%
42	Florida State University	12,858	7,154	n/a	79.7%
43	Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University	12,857	11,368	49	13.1%
44	University of Iowa	12,784	4,029	n/a	217.3%
45	Wilmington University	12,745	5,361	n/a	137.7%
46	University of North Texas	12,517	11,259	n/a	11.2%
47	University of Alabama at Birmingham	12,371	6,843	n/a	80.8%
48	North Carolina State University	12,321	10,873	n/a	13.3%
49	Cuyahoga Community College District	12,266	12,418	40	-1.2%
50	Pennsylvania State University World Campus	12,242	8,488	n/a	44.2%