Earning an online bachelor’s degree can be a great alternative to attending a traditional university, especially for working professionals and older students. Online courses offer the advantages of convenience and flexibility, but they require self-discipline and time organizational skills.
Convenience means an insomniac can do course work at 3 a.m. in bed instead of being required to attend classes at a specific day and time. On the down side, balancing work, family and studies can be difficult.
Another disadvantage is that employers don’t always value online bachelor's degrees as much as traditional college degrees. Like traditional colleges, online programs differ in quality and price.
The division between online programs and traditional colleges is blurring, however, as more traditional colleges offer online courses. As more brick-and-mortar colleges go online, respect for online degrees is likely to improve. While more traditional colleges now have online courses, not all offer online degrees.
Online learning even has reached the Ivy League. Harvard University has about 170 online courses scheduled for the 2010-11 term in more than 20 subject areas including classics, computers, economics, education, government, journalism, management and religion.
A bachelor’s degree often is a minimum requirement for many jobs. For other jobs, it provides job seekers an edge over other applicants or gives them access to higher pay.
In some professions, such as nursing and accounting, earning a bachelor’s degree prepares the student to take a licensing exam. It also usually is the first step in many occupations to earning advanced master’s degrees or doctorates.
Most bachelor’s degrees at traditional colleges take four years to complete and often require 120 semester credits. Some online colleges operate on quarter systems and require 180 to 190 credits for a bachelor’s degree.
An online bachelor’s degree can be earned at a student’s own pace, so it may take longer or shorter to complete than at a traditional college.
Cost of an Online Bachelors Degree
Online bachelor's degrees are not necessarily less expensive than at a traditional college, although students save on commuting, room and board. Tuition at online universities can range from $310 to $580 per credit hour. At smaller public colleges, tuition can be $109 to $336 per credit hour.
Like traditional universities, online schools work hard to obtain the maximum in financial aid and loans for their students, taking advantage of federal education grants and other sources.
To illustrate the cost comparison of an online degree with a traditional college degree, it’s helpful to look at a typical online university.
At American Intercontinental University Online, a bachelor’s degree credits cost $355 or $361 per credit hour and most online bachelor's degrees require 180 credit hours for a total cost of $32,000 to $32,540. If those credits are spread over four years, annual tuition costs would be about $8,000.
Those costs compare favorably to elite universities like Cornell, where the annual tuition for a four-year program is $39,686, or Stanford, where the annual tuition is $38,700.
A bachelor's degree at American Intercontinental also is less expensive than some large public universities like the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), where annual in-state tuition is $10,781, or the University of South Carolina, where in-state tuition is $9,796.
But an online degree at American Intercontinental is more expensive than bachelor's degrees at smaller colleges like the University of Central Florida, where annual tuition is $5,020 or $20,080 for four years for in-state students. Public universities usually charge more for out-of-state students.
Online tuition is competitive with traditional universities, but savings can be considerable for online students on room and board. Students would save the estimated annual room and board costs of $8,014 at the University of Central Florida or $13,734 at UCLA.
Online students also can save commuting costs. If a student drives 30 miles round-trip to class three days a week in a car that gets 30 miles per gallon, the cost of gasoline would be $7.50 a week at a price of $2.50 a gallon.
Most Popular Bachelors Programs
Three of the most popular online degree programs are business, criminal justice and nursing.
A bachelor's degree in business can prepare students for a variety of business occupations such as accountants, administrative services managers, purchasing agents or human resources specialists. It also can provide the basis for advanced studies leading to a master’s degree in business administration.
More than three dozen colleges offer online programs in business for specialties like accounting. An online bachelor's degree in business administration with an accounting major requires 195 credit hours and costs $58,056 at Westwood College.
The University of Phoenix, Grand Canyon University Online and Kaplan University are other online schools that offer bachelor's degrees in business administration and management.
According to U.S. News & World Report, the top off-line colleges for accounting are the University of Texas at Austin, where in-state business school tuition is $10,326 for two semesters; the University of Illinois at Urbana, where annual in-state business tuition is $15,114; and Brigham Young University, where tuition for undergraduate Mormon students is $3,315 for two semesters.
In nursing, a bachelor's degree prepares students to take the national licensing exam to become registered nurses.
At Walden University, an online bachelor of science in nursing requires 59 semester credit hours and costs $25,455. Online nursing degrees also are available at Colorado Technical University Online, Keiser University eCampus and Brandman University.
The top ranked traditional nursing schools are the University of Washington at Seattle, where annual undergraduate tuition is $8,701, and the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, where annual nursing program tuition is $34,868.
Although many law enforcement jobs require only a high school diploma, a bachelor's degree often is needed for higher level positions.
After they are hired, police officers also are required to receive about three months of training at a police academy. Large police departments run their own academies while smaller departments train their officers at state academies. Federal immigration and FBI agents also are required to complete academy training.
An online Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice costs $66,780 and requires 180 credit hours at Kaplan University. Other top online schools for criminal justice include Bryant and Stratton College Online, Florida Tech University Online and St. Leo University Online.
The highest rated traditional colleges for criminal justice are Syracuse University, where annual tuition is $12,268; Drury University, where annual tuition is $14,669; and the University of Louisville, where annual in-state tuition is $5,532.
Other popular areas of online study include graphic design and information technology. Graphic designers work in publishing, advertising or with a design firm while information technology specialists maintain computer and software systems. A bachelor’s degree in graphic design at Full Sail University, a new online college founded in 2007, costs $57,000 and takes eight semesters or four years to complete. Other colleges that offer online bachelor’s degrees in graphic design include the Grand Canyon University, the International Academy of Design and Technology Online and Stevens-Henagar College Online. Three of the best traditional colleges for graphic design are Chapman University, where annual tuition is $27,858; Boston University, where annual tuition is $31,966; and Cedarville University, where annual tuition is $16,070.
A bachelor’s degree in information systems is a minimum requirement for many jobs managing computer systems and technical staff. At Colorado Technical University Online, a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration on information technology requires 90 credits and costs $30,600. Other online colleges that offer the bachelor’s degrees in information technology include Ashford University, Florida Technical University and St. Leo University. Top traditional schools for information technology include Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where tuition and fees are $39,212; the University of California at Berkeley, where undergraduate tuition is free for state residents; and Stanford University, where tuition is $38,700.
Job opportunities
Strong job growth is expected over the next decade for students with bachelor’s degrees in business, nursing and criminal justice.
The need for accountants and auditors is expected to increase 22 percent with abut 280,000 new jobs due to new business start-ups and financial law changes. The mean annual wage for accountants currently is $67,430, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Accountants make sure that businesses pay their taxes and keep accurate public records. They analyze financial records and provide regular reports to company officials and clients. To become certified public accountants (CPAs), they must pass a national exam and meet state requirements.
Registered nurses, the largest health care occupation, provide patient treatment, health education and emotional support. With advanced degrees, registered nurses can write prescriptions and perform some medical procedures. Registered nurses also may supervise licensed practical nurses and nursing aides. Earning a Bachelor of Science degree from an accredited online or traditional nursing program and passing the licensing exam is one way to become a registered nurse. There are about 2.6 million registered nurses and the mean annual wage is $66,530. The number of jobs for registered nurses is expected to rise 22 percent by 2018 with 581,500 new jobs, one of the largest amounts of any occupation. Driving the job growth will be the aging population, more focus on preventative care and new technology.
Police officers conduct regular patrols, investigate suspicious activity, write traffic tickets, compile incident reports and testify in court. Detectives investigate serious crimes like rape or homicide. A bachelor’s degree in criminal justice can lead to a wide range of law enforcement jobs, including police, prisons, environmental protection and immigration enforcement. Employment of police officers is expected to grow 10 percent to about 972,000 jobs by 2018 as departments expand. Jobs also will be available to replace retiring officers. Police officers earn a mean annual wage of $55,180.
Graphic designers work with visual communications. They use photography, illustrations, animation and print to design corporate reports, magazines, newspapers, product packaging and marketing materials. Job opportunities for graphic designers are expected to show average growth of about 13 percent to about 318,000 by 2018 as demand increases for their services. The current mean annual wage is $47,820.
Information technology managers coordinate hardware and software installation, supervise other technicians and develop computer system plans for their organizations. They also supervise system security and maintenance. The number of jobs in information technology management is expected to grow 17 percent to about 343,000 by 2018 as companies strive to keep pace with new technology. The mean annual wage for information technology managers is $120,640.
Evaluating online colleges
Accreditation isn’t an effective way to judge online programs because nearly every online college is accredited by one group or another. Keiser University e-Campus, for example, is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools while Walden University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
To evaluate the quality of online programs, the Online Education Database has compiled a ranking of 45 online colleges. The rankings compare the acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, peer web citations, retention rate, scholarly citations, student-faculty ratios and years accredited.
The graduation rate, for example, shows the percentage of students who complete degree programs. Champlain College had the highest graduation rate of 84 percent while the University of Phoenix, one of the nation’s largest online schools, had the lowest with 4 percent.
The acceptance rate is the percentage of applicants that are admitted into the online program. A lower percentage means a college maintains higher academic standards for admissions. Kaplan and Capella universities accept all applicants while ITT Technical Institute accepts only 35 percent of applicants.
The quality of academic work at traditional colleges often is judged by the number of citations by scholars in research papers. Among the colleges with online programs, Nova Southeastern University, which has a small online program in a few subject areas, led in the number of scholarly citations with 11,800 while Franklin University had the fewest with four.