When the economy turns sour, historically people tend to look towards higher education as a tool to improve their finances, or to guard against layoffs. This time around, it's online education that has seen the largest increase in demand.

Anne-Marie Norgren (seen at right), 21, a student at Arizona State University, says she spent the past few weeks hiking mountains and making homemade pizza with her friends in Lima, Peru. Meanwhile, she's a full-time mathematics student at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ.

According to a study published in January, there was a 17 percent increase in online class enrollment last year among people enrolled in brick and mortar colleges and universities.

"[Online classes] have allowed me to spend more time outside of the classroom so that I can do other things to augment my university education," Norgren told ABC News On Campus. Students like her all across the country are finding virtual classes at their home institution a viable and valuable option.

Around 4.6 million students took online courses last year, which is about 25 percent of college students, according to the "Learning on Demand" study released by the Sloan Consortium, an organization that aims to integrate online learning into mainstream higher-education. The study was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Researchers were from the Babson Survey Research group at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.