This is a significant milestone in the acceptance of virtual universities. The US Department of Education establishes the Distance Learning Education Demonstration Program which will serve as a pilot program of 15 post-secondary schools, systems and consortia permitted to offer federal financial aid for distance learning programs. 1999 Learning portals, including HungryMinds, Click2Learn, eCollege, and Blackboard emerge on the education landscape. It is safe to say that we are already seeing the next generation of distance education. With the speed that technology is advancing and the abundance of personal computers and Web technologies, people have already begun to embrace distance learning in a digital world.
Postsecondary institutions plan to increase their delivery of distance education.
With the introduction of affordable digital communications and cellular handheld devices, our world now has an abundance of distance learning opportunities for anyone, at anytime, at anywhere in the world. We can only guess, but rest assured that as long as people want education and employees need training, distance learning will be a healthy and vibrant field.