The Hidden Geography of Online Higher Education

Using NC-SARA Fall 2024 data, we map which states retain, export, or lose fully online students—and what it means for policy and competition

Phil Hill
February 13, 2026

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Late last week in a premium post, I took a deeper dive into a story about Arizona State University’s (ASU’s) attempts to further expand in California by being eligible for Cal Grants (which California is fighting). The EdSource article focused on one institution and one policy decision. But the larger story is about geography.

Online higher education is often described as borderless. In practice, it is anything but.

This analysis focuses on interstate online enrollment patterns using NC-SARA Fall 2024 exclusive distance education data. NC-SARA is the organization that administers the State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (SARA), and it collects data on students enrolled fully online (i.e., exclusive distance education) across state lines. Using Fall 2024 data (combining undergraduate and graduate students), we can see something that IPEDS alone does not show: where fully online students actually live, and where they enroll. That distinction matters. IPEDS reports enrollments by institutional location; NC-SARA allows us to trace interstate demand.

What emerges is not a flat national market. Instead, we see a set of state-level markets with distinct patterns. State policies matter. Some states export enough students to shape other markets. Some retain a high percentage of their own residents. Others leak substantial demand while still hosting online programs of note.

Below, I walk through the national picture and then examine several states in more detail. See the end of the post for additional data notes.

United States

Before looking at California, here’s the US map that makes the state examples make sense.

DESCRIBING: A vertical, color-coded Sankey diagram illustrating online college student enrollment flows between states and institutions across the U.S. for Fall 2024. SYNOPSIS: This wide, rectangular diagram depicts how students enrolled exclusively in distance education move from their home states to the institutions or states that serve them nationwide. Large colored bands flow from student states at left, merge at center into either ‘Same State’ or ‘Other States’ groups, before splitting again to destination states and specific universities at right. The biggest flows originate from California, Texas, and Florida, with many students staying in their home state’s online programs, while a sizable portion enroll in out-of-state institutions. IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION: At the left, colored stacked rows represent the total online-exclusive enrollments by state—California, Texas, and Florida top the list. Each state’s colored bar flows into the center of the diagram, dividing between students served by institutions within their home state (a majority, grouped as ‘Same State’) and those who attend online programs from other states (‘Other States’). These bands continue rightward, splitting again: ‘Same State’ students mostly feed into a single box per state, while ‘Other States’ students are split among several institution states, with a thick orange band into Arizona. Further right, individual universities like Western Governors, Southern New Hampshire, and University of Phoenix receive substantial enrollments drawn from across the country. Overall, the diagram visually emphasizes both the dominance of in-state enrollments and the significant cross-state flows to a few major online universities.

63.6% of students in fully online programs are enrolled in same-state institutions, which is quite close to the IPEDS data for Fall 2024 showing 62.4%.
The biggest state fully online enrollments are California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. This is also the top list for same-state fully online enrollments.
The biggest state fully online out-of-state enrollments (whose institutions enroll out-of-state students nationwide) are Arizona, Utah, New Hampshire, and Virginia.
The biggest institution enrollments of out-of-state students nationwide are WGU, SNHU, UoP, Penn Foster College, Grand Canyon University, Liberty University, and ASU. It’s interesting how much of ASU’s out-of-state enrollments are from California - it does not have the broad-based nationwide footprint as the others.

From an initial view, states appear to fall into three rough categories: strategic out-of-state targets (large numbers drive other state strategies), retention states (most online students stay in-state), and leakage states (large shares enroll out-of-state). The examples below illustrate the different patterns.

Strategic Out-of-state Target Example: California

Even though we don’t have NC-SARA data on California institutions, I was able to substitute IPEDS data to fill in the gaps. Although not shown below, California institutions enroll remarkably few out-of-state students, just ~53,000. Yet a lot of California students are in fully online programs. Only Texas sends more online students to out-of-state institutions. It is interesting to note that California is not merely exporting students — it is exporting them primarily to a handful of scaled institutions — which I suspect is due to those large institutions being able to navigate the state authorizations without SARA.

DESCRIBING: A horizontal color Sankey diagram. SYNOPSIS: The diagram tracks how California residents exclusively enrolled in distance education for fall 2024 are distributed across states and institutions. Most stay in California, but a notable portion attend out-of-state schools, with some institutions drawing large numbers. The diagram highlights California's dominance but also names key out-of-state universities and the size of their California student populations. IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION: The left side of the diagram begins with a large band labeled “California All Exclusive DE Enrollments (791,234).” This single-entry splits into two main routes: a thick, greenish band (about three-quarters of the flow) marked “Same State (613,451: 77.5%),” representing California students enrolling in California institutions, and a peach-colored band labeled “Other States (177,783: 22.5%),” representing California students studying at institutions outside California. The “Same State” band leads directly to “California,” and further splits to show top in-state institutions, with National University (13,758: 1.7%) as the leading named institution, followed by public community colleges such as American River College and East Los Angeles College; a large portion simply labeled “Other” represents 64% of CA enrollments. The “Other States” band branches out to specific states: Arizona (51,559: 6.5%), Utah (24,223: 3.1%), New Hampshire (20,790: 2.6%), plus a large “Other States” grouping (50,120: 6.3%). These each subdivide into destinations, naming online-focused universities like Southern New Hampshire University (20,746: 2.6%), Western Governors University (19,026: 2.4%), Arizona State University, Grand Canyon University, and University of Phoenix, as well as a collective “Other” category.

Some observations (starting from the left and moving right):

California has 791,234 students in fully online programs, with a surprisingly high percentage (78%) in in-state programs. These are dominated by community colleges as well as National University.
California has 177,763 students as of Fall 2024 in fully online programs based in other states.
Arizona institutions enroll 29% of those students, split between multiple institutions—ASU, University of Phoenix (UoP), Grand Canyon University (GCU), Penn Foster College, among others.
Utah (primarily through Western Governors University) enrolls 14% of those 177,763 students, followed by New Hampshire, and Florida.
The top Other State institutions enrolling California residents are (in order): SNHU, WGU, ASU, UoP, GCU.

Paxton Ritter’s commentary on the premium post data is worth reading.

ASU’s presence in California is not accidental or marginal. It reflects a deliberate strategy grounded in the belief that educational mission should not stop at state borders — and that California students are actively seeking scaled, high-quality online options beyond their in-state system.

Retention Example: Arizona

Besides Arizona institutions enrolling a lot of out-of-state students, we can also see that this state retains a great deal of its own residents that are in fully online programs. Nearly three-quarters of them.

DESCRIBING: A horizontal color Sankey diagram showing enrollment patterns for Arizona students in exclusive distance education for Fall 2024. SYNOPSIS: The diagram depicts how more than 100,000 Arizona students enrolled exclusively in distance education are distributed between their home state and other states. Three-quarters stay within Arizona, mostly enrolling in the three largest universities. The remaining quarter pursue programs in multiple other states, especially Utah, New Hampshire, and Colorado, with a wide range of destination institutions. IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION: From left to right, the diagram is divided into four columns: Student State, Import/Export, Institution State, and Institution. A thick green flow shows that about 74.6% of Arizona’s exclusive distance education students, totaling over 75,000, remain in-state. Of those, the largest groups attend Arizona State University (18,423 students), Grand Canyon University (13,612), and the University of Phoenix (8,137). The rest are distributed among several other Arizona institutions, such as community colleges and the University of Arizona. About 25%—or over 25,000 students—choose out-of-state programs. Utah attracts about 4.8% of the total, primarily to Western Governors University. New Hampshire and Colorado follow, popularized by Southern New Hampshire University, Liberty University, and others. The diagram also includes smaller flows to states like Florida, Illinois, and Minnesota, spread across various online universities. The final “Other” categories consolidate less common institutions.

This retention of fully-online students is largely through ASU, GCU, UoP, and Rio Salado College. This is quite different than California’s community college dominant provision of same-state online enrollments.
Of the 25% of Arizona-based fully-online students who enroll in out-of-state institutions, the top ones are WGU, SNHU, Liberty, and American Public University System.

The payoff for scaled online programs is not limited to out-of-state expansion; it also includes serving large numbers of in-state students.

Leakage Example: Washington

At the opposite end is Washington, where resident students split roughly evenly between same-state and out-of-state institutions, below the 63 / 37 national average.

DESCRIBING: A large, horizontal, color-coded Sankey flow chart. SYNOPSIS: This image displays how exclusive distance education students from Washington are distributed across institutions in Fall 2024. The chart first divides student totals between those staying in Washington and those attending out-of-state schools, then breaks each branch down by state and institution, revealing which colleges enroll the most students. Bellevue College and Western Governors University are among the top individual institutions. IN-DEPTH DESCRIPTION: The chart starts at the left with a single rectangle labeled “Washington All Exclusive DE Enrollments (113,688).” This flow splits into two main paths: “Same State (57,444; 50.5%)” and “Other States (56,244; 49.5%).” The “Same State” path leads to institutions within Washington, with Bellevue College having the largest share (14,747; 13%), followed by several others including Eastern Washington University, Washington State University, and more, with a catch-all “Other (16,901; 14.9%).” The “Other States” path branches off into several state categories, the largest being Utah (16,531; 14.5%), Arizona (10,748; 9.5%), New Hampshire (3,233; 2.8%), and “Other (14,974; 13.2%).” Notable colleges are Western Governors University in Utah (16,193; 14.2%), Southern New Hampshire University, and Grand Canyon University in Arizona. An “Other (23,050; 20.3%)” category encompasses all remaining out-of-state institutions. This layered, step-down pattern reveals a roughly even split between students who stay and those who leave Washington, with major enrollment spikes at a handful of large, mostly online-focused universities.

Washington institutions only retain 51% of its fully-online students.
WGU has a very large presence in this state, largely based on the 2011 state legislated decision.

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed WGU-Washington into law today, giving official recognition to the first nonprofit online university in Washington state.

“Today begins a new chapter for higher education in Washington that will bring college opportunities in high-demand fields to more people and more places in our state than ever before,” said Rep. Phyllis Gutiérrez Kenney, who sponsored and led the passage of the new law.

Putting It Together

These patterns are not just descriptive curiosities.

If states increasingly condition aid, regulatory approval, or performance funding on in-state presence, earnings outcomes, or labor market alignment, then interstate online flows become more than enrollment trivia. They become policy targets.

California’s Cal Grant decision involving ASU is one early example of this dynamic. But the NC-SARA data suggest a broader reality: a small group of institutions operate as national exporters, while many states function primarily as retention markets. Others, like Washington in our example, appear comparatively porous.

Online higher education may be delivered through broadband, but its economics and politics remain grounded in state lines. The geography is not disappearing. It is becoming more visible.

We will do more work to further develop our analysis, but I hope this early view is illustrative and sets the stage.

Premium subscribers will see additional state analyses.

Data Notes

For premium subscribers: I have modified the graphic based on your feedback. The economic import / export usage in that post worked in my head but not with others, so I changed the flow to left-to-right and the language.
For the Institution and Institution State I am showing the Top 10, collapsing the rest into Other categories, for readability.
The charts below are designed to show not just how many California (or other states’) students enroll online out of state, but where that demand concentrates—by institution and by institution state.
California is a special case because it does not participate in SARA, therefore I substituted IPEDS same-state data. What is still missing is the breakdown of the 53,000 out-of-state students taking online programs from California institutions.

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