Distance Education Offers a Timeline Thesis

A similar trend was seen in many areas of U.S. society, such as the restriction of medicinal claims on products and other trends that began in the same decade.

It was very interesting to find that the U.S. Armed Forces had any part in distance education, and specifically how broad the areas of study offered by the U.S. Armed Forces Institute. The student base of about 500,000 is also interesting and surprising, but might be explained again by the fact that the nation was in constant need to make better citizens, and feeding the brain was though to be essential to this. It would also be interesting to see how much the USAFI utilized the programs to stress the importance of military service, though it is also clear that much of the work they did was to educate existing service men who had left education to join the military.

In many ways the history of distance education is a timeline of communication technologies. As the postal system developed distance education systems became widespread, even more so with the rail lines, telegraphs and materials transport, then the telephone played its part and then television became an active part of distance education. Currently the trend toward interactive multifaceted distance education through the technology of the internet is surfacing and becoming highly utilized. The multi-media trends of University of Wisconsin AIM and British Open University foreshadow the current technology and the desire to bring education to the masses at lower costs.

It is also likely that with each new system of technology a new trend of "for profit" institutions are in competition with more legitimate institutional offerings. The internet's trend of being an open communication and information tool will likely continue to change the landscape of education and the better the technology the better the offerings, with of course the inclusion of the need for the consumer to beware of illegitimate, non-accredited institutions. The initial technology investment by either legitimate or illegitimate institutions will likely drive the desire to gain acceptance for even broader distance education, and the growing cost of living will also increase even more the number of people who seek education in non-traditional ways, just as the masses sought it near the close of the industrial revolution. The statistics that stress the real number of people enrolled in distance education or partial distance education is proof of this trend.