Online learning remains popular at California Community Colleges

Despite a widespread return to in-person instruction following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many community colleges continue to offer more than half of their classes online, reported Insider Higher Ed.

Many community college students have opted for more flexible options due to work commitments and family responsibilities. East Los Angeles College, for example, offered 60% of its classes in either online or hybrid formats in the Spring 2023 term. Before the pandemic struck, less than a quarter of the classes had an online option.

Vice President of student services at East Los Angeles Miguel Duenas told Inside Higher Ed that he expects the ratio to be similar this fall.

“That’s something we’ve observed for the past couple semesters,” Duenas told the publication. “It gives them the flexibility to manage their lives and a lot of the needs that they have.”

Similar preferences have been voiced by students across the California Community Colleges system, and a survey of 400 students conducted in 2021 found that more than half preferred hybrid courses, while 27% wanted to keep fully remote instruction. Only 18% said they wanted to learn in-person.

The same survey found that about half of its campuses planned to offer between 50 to 85 percent of their Spring 2022 classes in-person, while about a third of districts only planned to offer 10 to 49 percent in person.

“Many districts found that overall, students show a higher demand for online courses,” read a report from the Chancellor’s Office. “In looking at the community college districts’ mix of in-person and online courses and plans for future instruction, the survey results show a large variance across the system in efforts to meet local student need and community conditions. Some districts are quickly transitioning back to in-person instruction, while other districts are finding that there is greater demand for online instruction.”