'Distance learning' gets its close-up

— -- Hannah Cross, a marketing major at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, hasn't let anything derail her from her college degree — not having a baby, not having back surgery, not having to hold down a job.

The 22-year-old single mother plans to graduate on time this spring — because she can take classes online and fit her education around her life, instead of the other way around.

Cross says she often studies until midnight or 1 a.m. while her daughter sleeps.

"You have to do everything yourself because you don't have anyone feeding it to you," she says. But "I learn more this way. I have to read the book and do the work to understand it, because I don't have a professor talking about it to me."

Online education — also known as "distance learning" — has become an increasingly convenient way to get a college education, especially for students with jobs and families to support. Nearly 3.5 million students enrolled in online classes during the fall of 2006-07, according to the 2007 Sloan Survey of Online Learning, which surveyed more than 2,500 schools and released results last month. Over the past five years, the survey found, online enrollments have grown by an annual average of 21.5%.

Most colleges venturing online

Students taking online courses don't have to show up in class — or even be on campus. To glean a professor's insights, students often read lecture outlines online. Sometimes they download an audio or video file of a specific lecture. They read books on their own time, ask questions via e-mail, and complete assignments without much supervision.

At this point, most U.S. colleges offer at least some of their courses online, and an estimated 100 schools operate exclusively online. Beyond convenience, online schools aim to offer value: They routinely rely on adjunct faculty and charge less than half as much per credit hour as traditional universities do.

For all its technological innovations, distance education isn't new. In 1840, Sir Isaac Pitman, a London educator, challenged country dwellers to translate Bible verses into shorthand and ship results to his city office for grading.