Evidence on Online Higher Education: The Promise of COVID-19 Pandemic Data

Among the many disruptions caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic was the sudden move to online teaching in colleges and universities across the globe. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of existing literature on the effectiveness of online college programs relative to traditional in-person programs. We argue that pre-pandemic studies may have drawn overly pessimistic conclusions about online teaching in higher education. We highlight two important limitations of pre-pandemic studies, namely endogeneity bias and the use of older instructional technology. The data that will emerge from the forced shift to online instruction during the pandemic will help correct several of these biases and provide a more accurate picture of the hopes and challenges of online higher education. Finally, we also provide some preliminary evidence on virtual instruction and evaluation methods using a survey of online undergraduate and graduate classes. We find that large undergraduate classes benefitted greatly from the online format, while smaller graduate classes faced significant challenges. Empirical studies of post-pandemic data will help in identifying when and how online instruction can provide the effective instruction to students to address both the short-term goals of course and degree completion and long-term outcomes in the labor market.