"The global learning market is immense According to institutional investment firm ThinkEquity, the global education market is worth $2.3 trillion, with distance learning comprising the market’s fastest growing sub-sector. Over the next 20 years the global market for online learning is estimated to exceed $215 billion, with rapid growth expected from cross-border delivery of higher education (an institution in one country delivers courses to students in other countries). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reports the U.S. is the largest exporter of educational services among eleven countries surveyed for its 2004 report, Trade in Educational Services. In fact, the U.S. is currently educating one-third of all cross-border students in the world.
Several factors are driving domestic institutions’ expansion into foreign markets. First, the U.S. population is growing comparatively slowly. The U.S. birthrate is low, and only immigration provides an increase in
population. This has caused enrollments of traditional aged college students (aged 18-22) to be nearing a peak in many parts of the country. The U.S. Census and the U.S. Department of Education project that in 2008-2009 3.2
million students will graduate from high school, an eight percent increase from today, but thereafter the number of high school graduates will decline. By 2017-2018, at least eight states will have witnessed the number of high school
graduates decline between 10 and 35 percent. Colleges and universities in many states are already finding that they must recruit students from other states and other countries to increase – or just to maintain-their enrollment levels.
At a time when many institutions in the U.S. must explore new markets for enrollment growth, other countries face a shortage of higher education campuses and student seats. Tertiary enrollment in China, for example, doubled from a rate of six percent of the higher education age population in 1999 to 12 percent in 2002. Although the number of higher education institutions has also grown, capacity still falls short of demand. At the same time, students around the world continue to show a predilection toward an American education, as evidenced by the roughly 570,000 foreign students attending U.S. colleges and universities in 2003-2004. In recent years, however, it has become increasingly difficult for foreign students to come to the United States to study. Concurrently the technological capacity in many foreign countries has increased markedly, and the number of internet users worldwide has skyrocketed. Those factors converge to enhance U.S. postsecondary institutions’ opportunities for success delivering their courses and programs directly to students in the global e-learning market."