Overview

• Censo 2024 shows 5.1 million students in distance programs versus 5.0 million in face-to-face courses, with EAD rising to 66.8% of enrollments from 23.4% in 2014.
• MEC’s 2025 framework ends 100% online undergraduate degrees and requires at least 20% of EAD coursework to be in-person or delivered synchronously.
• Medicine, Law, Dentistry, Nursing and Psychology must be offered exclusively in person, and institutions begin complying with the new rules in 2026.
• Only 39% of students who entered in 2015 had graduated by 2024, with a 24.1% dropout rate in EAD last year compared with 9.5% in in-person courses.
• About 80% of higher-education students are in private institutions, and EAD growth is concentrated there, with technological programs accounting for 47% of new EAD vacancies.