Edtech Market: The Boom in Online Learning

The COVID-19 pandemic has rocked each sector of the economy, but few realms have felt the effects more than education. With campuses closed across the US, preschoolers and PhD candidates alike are cooped up at home, trying to keep learning in the midst of the crisis. 

Most students, teachers, and institutions are new to or relatively inexperienced with remote education. Before the pandemic, according to the latest available data, only 15% of US college students enrolled exclusively in online courses and fewer than 1% of K-12 students enrolled full-time in online schools — but suddenly, almost all students are taking classes entirely online. 

Some lack the devices and internet connections they need to learn from home, while many teachers are struggling with digital systems they don’t fully understand. Plenty of schools and colleges scrambled to set up distance learning tools, only to be embarrassed when naked strangers Zoombombed classes.