As the job market grows softer and less nourishing than a jelly doughnut, reports show more people are returning to school to immunize their careers and feed their souls. But "school" is not necessarily the idyll of leafy campuses and long afternoons arguing philosophy in oak-paneled rooms.

Online education, long an ugly duckling of the ivory towers of the world, is coming into its swan years. In its annual report on the state of online education, the Sloan Consortium reported in 2008 that online education continues to grow at a much faster rate than its brick-and-mortar competitors. Anecdotal evidence suggests that 2009's economic woes will only accelerate the pattern. "We have seen our small university double in size this year," says Scott Stallings, director of marketing and admissions for California InterContinental University, a for-profit "distance education" university in Diamond Bar (Los Angeles County). "I believe this can be attributed to our low cost of tuition and the large influx of students who need their degrees to remain competitive." Vicky Phillips, founder of GetEducated.com, which rates online education degrees and filters out diploma mills, says that in the past 12 months, she has seen an 18 percent increase in enrollment inquiries for online college degrees on her Web site - with the strongest increase in associate degrees and certificates. She says this reflects a trend: Though distance learning has mostly served older working adults, online education is now attracting a younger generation. "These kids must work full time," Phillips said. "They can't afford the traditional four years of sheltered college life. Also, they grew up with the Internet and love and trust communicating and learning online." Indeed, even traditional universities are getting in on the virtual act.

Stanford University now offers 23 master's of science degrees entirely online. Boston University offers a master's in music education and the University of California system just announced its first online master's program in criminology, law and society. In the wake of a budget crisis that has forced the UC system to reduce enrollment, Christopher Edley, dean of UC Berkeley's Boalt Law School, wrote an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, calling for a "UC cyber campus" that would extend its first-class education to tens of thousands of additional students. For those whose disposable income amounts to nary a penny, various top-flight schools like MIT are now offering free university classes - on topics as varied as women's studies and mechanical engineering - through OpenCourseware, a sort of educational equivalent of open-source programming.

Once a backwater of get-rich-quick MBAs and exotic programs for military personnel, prisoners and serial lifelong learners, distance learning now offers what many returning students desperately need: thrift, convenience and flexibility. "I weighed a lot of variables," says Angel Garcia, 32, of Escondido (San Diego County) after finishing his master's degree in management from American Public University this month. Garcia worked 55 to 65 hours a week on top of a full load of classes. "I wanted a school that was nationally and regionally accredited but also one that was affordable," he said. He close American Public University after comparing its fee of $275 per unit to traditional public university programs of $550 to $600 per unit. When asked whether his online experience seemed less rigorous than studying for his bachelor's degree from Vanguard University, a private college in Costa Mesa (Orange County), he suggested that it was quite the opposite: "If anything, the people (in the master's program) were more professional, and the culture was more intellectual." Evidence suggests that Garcia's experience is not unusual.

Recently, the Department of Education released a study suggesting that a mix of online and face-to-face education produces the best learning outcomes. Exclusively online education proved slightly more effective than only face-to-face learning. Such findings don't surprise Gary Matkin, dean of continuing education at the UC Irvine. "It's not that online education is just growing," he says. "It's that online education and other kinds of education are merging." He says hybrid education combines online components with in-class learning at bricks-and-mortar universities. "I can't imagine designing a modern professional master's degree program without it being an online program."