In order to understand the kind of people lives in the desert, one must understand the environment of the desert. This has often proved to be an effective method of analyzing something. In this case, it is the same. In order to know what kind of student attends community college online, one must first understand what the nature of community college online is. That way, we can have an understanding of the kind of people are embarking on this journey.

Attending online is different from attending an actual traditional community college. For one thing, services in education are being done online. The idea of convenience oftentimes does not complement with the idea of efficiency. Some people cannot succeed very well in an online environment, because an online environment does not promote interaction in the same way an actual, traditional classroom does. Computer literacy and the ability to grasp how Internet transactions and communication flow, is the bread and butter of the idea of online programs. There are only two kinds of students in online and they are simply categorized here as those who are likely to succeed and those who are unlikely to succeed.

Those who are likely to succeed are those who are persistent with their approach to online learning. Those who are persistent can manage to give double effort, and in this way the idea of convenience does not get in the way of his or her motivation. Most importantly, he or she must be computer literate. Computer literate students have an advantage and they are the ones who will reap the benefits of attending online.

However, those who are unlikely to succeed are those who are not persistent with their approach to online learning. Being computer illiterate is a serious disadvantage to anyone embarking on the path towards online education. Because one is not literate in computers, he or she experiences how seriously counter-productive this racket might be. This may be the very reason why online learning does not work; because some students do not know how to use the systems in a way to take advantage of going to online.