Online Education Attracting Support

from the is-now-the-time? dept

It seems like every year someone else makes a "major" investment into online education. There was Michael Milken and his Knowledge Universe. There was Michael Saylor and his plans to spend $100 million on online education. None of these efforts have really become the huge deal that they're always predicted to be. Is there ever going to be a time that online education will be huge? Starbucks' Howard Schultz seems to believe the time is now, as he's invested $7.5 million in Capella Education Co., an online learning venture. The same day, another online education company, Headsprout, announced that they had raised $6.3 million. Is now the time for online education to finally take off? There certainly are more people using it these days, and it seems to have shaken off some of the overhype problems (it will destroy campuses!), and found its niche. However, I do wonder if it's really the sort of explosive opportunity that venture capitalists usually look for.