Continuing education
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Continuing education, in its most general definition, is education intended for adult learners, especially for those beyond traditional undergraduate college or university age. Frequently, in the United States, it can involve enrollment in college/university credit-granting courses, often by students enrolled part-time, and often offered through a division or school of continuing education of a college/university. Also frequently in the US, it can mean enrollment in non-credit-granting courses, often taken for personal, non-vocational enrichment (although many non-credit courses can also have a vocational function). Also, in the US, many such non-credit courses are offered by community colleges. Community colleges and some other non-baccalaureate institutions may also offer remedial programs, such as basic literacy, literacy improvement, English language skills, and preparation for a high school General Equivalency Diploma (GED).
The University of Wisconsin, in 1904, was the first academic institution in the US to offer what today would be considered an identifiable continuing education program. In 1969, Empire State College, a unit of the State University of New York, was the first institution in the US to exclusively focus on providing higher education to adult learners.
The method of delivery of continuing education can include traditional types of classroom lectures and laboratories. However, much continuing education makes heavy use of distance learning, which not only includes independent study, but which can include videotaped/CD-ROM material, broadcast programming, and online/Internet delivery. In addition to independent study, the use of conference-type group study, which can include study networks (which can, in many instances, meet together online) as well as different types of seminars/workshops, can be used to facilitate learning. A combination of traditional, distance, and conference-type study, or two of these three types, may be used for a particular continuing education course or program.