Online universities: student perception and economic factors. Results from a 2-year analysis in Italy

In the last decade, in an attempt to revitalize the Italian university system, several legal reforms have made profound changes in the structure of the academic courses, in the system of course titles and in the curricula of individual degree courses, giving greater autonomy to each university in establishing the courses to be taught, the teaching methods and technologies to be used and the level of professionalism to be reached. The natural consequence of autonomy and flexibility has been a continuing growth in the number of degree courses and a greater variety of educational opportunities. In this paper, we present the results of a research performed in 2005 concerning how potential university students perceive the benefits and risks of choosing an online university, and compare some results with the data gathered 2 years before. Besides, we relate these data to the impact they can have on the online academic education market.