Number of technological achievements is increasing daily. Information and Communication Technology and its application are developing in all areas of human activity. It fundamentally changes the way people live, learn and work. Thanks to the development of the Internet and technology, e-learning has also taken its place in the world of education. Today traditional teaching leaves its space and education becomes independent of time and space, and available to anyone who owns a computer and the Internet. This paper describes the concept of e-learning, what preceded its development and which are the basic characteristics and classification of e-learning. Also, the advantages and disadvantages compared to traditional education systems that enable e-learning, and what awaits us in the future has been stated in this paper. In particular, it describes the changes taking place in education in colleges and companies, and states examples of such institutions in Croatia. The research part of the paper refers to the online survey conducted among students at the Faculty of Economics, in order to determine their views on e-learning and gain insight into whether they are ready for that kind of learning. The results show that students, although have a sufficient level of computer literacy, are still not fully prepared for the online way of learning or acquiring a diploma through e-learning.