THE ADVANTAGES AND THE DISADVANTAGES OF E-LEARNING IN EUROPEAN UNION Ionela-Catalina Tudorache 1 Ana-Maria Mihaela Iordache 2 Mihai-Tiberiu Iordache 3 ABSTRACT By 2006, nearly 3.5 million students were participating in on-line learning at institutions of higher education in United States. Many higher education and for-profit institutions, now offer on-line classes. By contrast, only about half of private, non-profit schools offer them. The Sloan report, based on a poll of academic leaders, says that students generally appear to be at least as satisfied with their on-line classes as they are with traditional ones. In the article we talk about the impact of the introduction of e-learning methods on the education system in Romania, correlated with other programs already implemented at European level. Keywords: e-learning, classic learning, statistics for Romania 1. INTRODUCTION Electronic learning (or e-Learning or eLearning) is a type of education where the medium of instruction is computer technology. No in-person interaction may take place in some instances. E-learning is used interchangeably in a wide variety of contexts. In companies, it refers to strategies that use the company network to deliver training courses to employees [7]. The worldwide e-learning industry is estimated to be worth over 38 billion euros according to conservative estimates although in the European Union only about 20% of e-learning products are produced within the common market [6]. Developments in internet and multimedia technologies are the basic enabler of e- learning, with content, technologies and services being identified as the three key sectors of the e-learning industry. 2. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF E-LEARNING From the main advantages of e-learning are [9]: the possibility of work in a flexible way regarding other home activities, the reducing of time and money spent on travelling from home to school, eLearning gives to students the possibility of taking the responsibility for studding. The final advantage is very important due to the manner in which the students are 1 Student, Romanian-American University, Bucharest 2 Assitant Lecturer, Phd, School of Computer Science for Business Management, Romanian-American University, Bucharest 3 Engineer, IMSAT, Bucharest