The U.S. market for self-paced e-learning products and services in pre-K-12 education has increased by 16.8 percent over the past five years, according to a new market-research study.
The report by Ambient Insight, a market-research group based in Monroe, Wash., found that e-learning products across various U.S. industries—including health care, higher education, pre-K-12, nonprofits, and the government—totaled $18.2 billion in 2010, a figure that is expected to reach $24.2 billion by 2015.
Growth in the pre-K-12 sector has increased much faster than the e-learning market in general because of the launching of virtual schools, a dramatic increase in the number of online students, and state budget cuts, says the report. Reductions in state funding have prompted schools to replace summer school and in-class, credit-recovery courses with self-paced, online-learning products and services, the report found.