Best Online Colleges & Degrees Methodology
Tuitions were manually researched and reflect the lowest tuition rate available at the specified degree level. With the exception of the Best Online Colleges by State lists, out-of-state tuitions were used unless in-state tuition is offered to all online students. Figures are accurate at the time of publication; please check with the institution for current tuition rates. Median salaries were provided by PayScale and reflect the reported mid-career (10+ years of experience) salaries of alumni from each school. Tuition data and median salaries were then entered in an ROI formula to determine rank order. The requirements to be considered for our best online colleges by program and best online colleges by state rank lists can be found below.
Best Online Colleges by Program
To be considered for these subject rankings, schools need to be regionally or nationally accredited and need to offer at least one fully online degree in a given subject for the degree level that was ranked. We also only considered schools with reported PayScale salaries. Salaries are specific to the degree level and the program of each list except for the following lists which used overall school salaries at the degree level of the list:
Bachelor's:
- Dental Hygiene
- Journalism
- Music
Master's:
- Biology
- Christian Counseling
- Creative Writing
- English
- Environmental Science
- Exercise Science
- Forensic Psychology
- Forensic Science
- History
- Nutrition
- Political Science
- School Counseling
- Speech Pathology
Best Online Colleges by State
To be considered for these state rankings, schools need to be regionally accredited and need to offer at least one fully online degree at the bachelor's level. In-state tuitions were used in the ROI formula.
Fully Online Status
Schools with programs that require some on-campus coursework were still considered for our rankings if the amount of in-person work required was limited to two weeks or less. This allows students to retain their current employment or other personal responsibilities.
Data Sources
Program data including available degrees, tuition rates, and details about program coursework were collected from official school websites, reflecting data for the 2019-2020 school year. These data were collected in August of 2019.
Programmatic accreditation and profit status of schools were collected from official websites of the accreditation agencies or from the National Center for Education Statistics. The NCES is the primary governmental entity for gathering and presenting data related to education. NCES data are updated annually. The NCES does not release data into downloadable formats until they have been approved, so the most current available data will not be for the most recent academic year.