We draw on administrative data from the country of Colombia to assess differences in student learning in online and traditional on-campus college programs. The Colombian context is uniquely suited to study this topic, as students take a compulsory exit examination at the end of their studies. We can therefore directly compare the performance on the exit exam for students in online and on-campus programs both across and within institutions, degrees, and majors. Using inverse probability weighting methods based on a rich set of background characteristics coupled with institution–degree–major fixed effects, our results suggest that bachelor’s degree students in online programs perform worse on nearly all test score measures (including math, reading, writing, and English) relative to their counterparts in on-campus programs. Results for shorter technical certificates are more mixed. While online students perform significantly worse than on-campus students on exit exams in private institutions, they perform better in SENA—the main public vocational institution in the country.

我们利用哥伦比亚国家/地区的行政数据来评估在线和传统校园课程中学生学习的差异。哥伦比亚语的环境非常适合研究此主题，因为学生在学习结束时必须参加强制性的考试。因此，我们可以直接比较机构，学位和专业之间以及内部和内部的在线和校园课程中学生的结业考试成绩。使用基于丰富背景特征集和机构学位主要固定效应的逆概率加权方法，我们的结果表明，在线课程中的学士学位学生在几乎所有考试成绩量度（包括数学，阅读，写作和英语）（相对于校园课程中的对应语言）。较短技术证书的结果好坏参半。在私人机构中，在线学生的表现要比校内学生差得多，但在该国主要的公共职业机构SENA中，他们的表现要好得多。