High gas prices may be responsible for driving college students to the virtual classroom. Online class enrollment is up all across the country, but the trend is also affecting local schools.

Chipola College offers 40 different programs, ranging from four bachelor degrees to certification classes. This fall 28 of the classes for those programs will be offered online.

In fact, Chipola administrator Kitty Myers says they're hoping to eventually offer one entire degree program over the Internet.

"Our plans for the BSN, the bachelors in nursing, is to increase the number of online courses over the next years with the possibility of that course completely being online within another year."

The trend is part of college's effort to maintain enrollment as well as make accommodations for the increased cost of traveling to and from school.

"We realize what the crunch is, our students feel the crunch, our faculty feel the crunch so we think it's our mission try to serve our students in the best way possible, " Myers said.

Chipola College’s Jayne Roberts says that means more online course, but the virtual classroom is just one of the gas saving efforts, the other involves a complete reworking of class schedules.

"They can come one day a week and they can get 12 hours of course work, " said Roberts.

Which means instead of going to a class three days a week for one hour each day, students can go one day for three hours.

"So they don't have to come the traditional five days to school, we hope that's going to help people save gas," Myers said.

Early registration for fall semester is tomorrow and Thursday. Regular registration is from August 18 through the 20th.