More than 80 percent of graduate students at four-year for-profit institutions were taking courses exclusively through distance education in the fall of 2015. In contrast, at two-year for-profit institutions, nearly 90 percent of students were not enrolled in any distance-education courses.
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| 4-year public institutions | undergraduate | 6,916,172 | 5,065,989 | 73.2% | 1,376,078 | 19.9% | 474,105 | 6.9% |
| 4-year public institutions | graduate | 1,422,383 | 1,022,336 | 71.9% | 134,770 | 9.5% | 265,277 | 18.7% |
| 4-year public institutions | total | 8,338,555 | 6,088,325 | 73.0% | 1,510,848 | 18.1% | 739,382 | 8.9% |
| 4-year private nonprofit institutions | undergraduate | 2,768,119 | 2,145,662 | 77.5% | 234,817 | 8.5% | 387,640 | 14.0% |
| 4-year private nonprofit institutions | graduate | 1,244,180 | 868,602 | 69.8% | 95,799 | 7.7% | 279,779 | 22.5% |
| 4-year private nonprofit institutions | total | 4,012,299 | 3,014,264 | 75.1% | 330,616 | 8.2% | 667,419 | 16.6% |
| 4-year for-profit institutions | undergraduate | 846,671 | 246,008 | 29.1% | 87,192 | 10.3% | 513,471 | 60.6% |
| 4-year for-profit institutions | graduate | 273,911 | 37,690 | 13.8% | 12,409 | 4.5% | 223,812 | 81.7% |
| 4-year for-profit institutions | total | 1,120,582 | 283,698 | 25.3% | 99,601 | 8.9% | 737,283 | 65.8% |
| 2-year public institutions | undergraduate | 6,215,666 | 4,389,944 | 70.6% | 1,109,032 | 17.8% | 716,690 | 11.5% |
| 2-year private nonprofit institutions | undergraduate | 50,049 | 34,011 | 68.0% | 14,835 | 29.6% | 1,203 | 2.4% |
| 2-year for-profit institutions | undergraduate | 224,977 | 198,663 | 88.3% | 16,521 | 7.3% | 9,793 | 4.4% |
| All institutions | undergraduate | 17,021,654 | 12,080,277 | 71.0% | 2,838,475 | 16.7% | 2,102,902 | 12.4% |
| All institutions | graduate | 2,940,474 | 1,928,628 | 65.6% | 242,978 | 8.3% | 768,868 | 26.1% |
| All institutions | total | 19,962,128 | 14,008,905 | 70.2% | 3,081,453 | 15.4% | 2,871,770 | 14.4% |
Note: Data cover 4,584 degree-granting four-year and two-year institutions in the United States that are eligible to participate in the Title IV federal student-aid program. Distance education refers to the use of one or more technologies to instruct students who are separated by distance from the instructor, and to support interaction between students and the instructor. The technologies may include the internet, closed-circuit television, and audio conferencing.
Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data