U.S. News evaluated online bachelor’s and master’s programs on various criteria, including student engagement.
It's hard to deny the economic benefits of a college education, particularly in a sluggish economy. Students with a bachelor's degree earn 84 percent more over their lifetime than those with only a high school diploma, and the unemployment rate for workers without a college education is more than double the rate for those with a four-year degree, according to reports by Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce.
With the number of schools offering fully online degree programs nearly double what it was 10 years ago— 62.4 percent of colleges and universities offered fully online programs in 2012, compared with 34.5 percent in 2002, according to a January 2013 online education report by the Babson Survey Research Group—more students can unlock the benefits of higher education without quitting their jobs or uprooting their families.
[Learn how to decide if online ed is right for you.]
But similar to brick-and-mortar colleges, not all online degree programs are created equal. U.S. News aims to help students evaluate their options with the 2013 Best Online Education Programs rankings. U.S. News evaluated 237 online bachelor's degree programs, as well as online master's degree programs in business (213), education (208), nursing (101), engineering (70), and computer information technology, or CIT (30).
Only degree-granting programs offering courses that are 100 percent online were considered for the rankings. These programs were assigned an overall numerical rank based on the following factors: student engagement, faculty credentials and training, and students services and technology. Admissions selectivity also factored into the rankings for all online master's degree programs, and academic peer reputation was included in the calculations for engineering and business program rankings.
[See how the Best Online Programs rankings were calculated.]
While the U.S. News rankings evaluate online programs, many of the top-performing schools have physical campuses—and proximity to campus is an important factor for students, according to a July 2012 report by Learning House. The online education company surveyed 1,500 students who had either enrolled or planned to enroll in a fully online degree program.
Roughly 80 percent of online students live within 100 miles of their school's campus or learning center, and the vast majority of those students live within 50 miles, according to the Learning House report. This proximity can help students overcome one of their main complaints of online programs: lack of face-to-face time with instructors.
Pace University, which has a physical campus in New York City, claimed the No. 1 spot for online bachelor's degree programs. Top-performing online master's degree programs include Washington State University (business), University of Southern California (engineering and CIT), St. John's University in New York (education), and Ferris State University in Michigan (nursing).
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