Online colleges and online education more generally have seen an enormous increase in student e-learners over the last decade. Ten years ago, America saw around 2 million higher education students learning online. That number has now almost quadrupled.
According to a 2015 report by Babson Research titled Tracking Online Education in the United States, today the number of college students learning online exceeds 7 million. With the overall higher education student body in the U.S. currently at 21 million, that means one out of three college students is taking at least one course entirely online.
It’s therefore no surprise that online colleges and universities, which focus on delivering course content exclusively online, have proliferated. These schools enable students to finish a degree program and graduate with little more than a laptop and internet connection.
Nonetheless, online colleges and universities differ widely in quality. Moreover, with increasing competition for online students, many campus-based schools are now getting into the mix and offering online degrees. For this reason, rankings of online colleges and universities need to be regularly updated. Hence this ranking of the top 50 online colleges for 2016.
Although online education gives students unrivaled flexibility in pursuing a degree program, it is not right for everyone. Online education requires self-discipline and a set of study skills that some students on first attending college may lack. For this reason, we have supplemented this ranking with our highly informative “Savvy Student’s Guide to Online Colleges and Online Education” (located below right after our ranking).
Together, our ranking of the 50 best online colleges and universities for 2016 as well as our student guide to online colleges and online education provide the most comprehensive resource available on the web for helping prospective students determine whether online education is right for them and, if so, deciding which online college is best for them.
This ranking of the best online colleges and universities is based on extensive research and familiarity with American online education. In formulating this ranking, we looked to such factors as academic excellence, scholarly strength of faculty, online teaching methods, tuition costs, reputation, awards, financial aid, and range of degree programs offered.
This ranking of the best online colleges and universities, along with the supplemental student guide at the end, is meant to help you, the prospective student, make wise choices about your online education. This ranking identifies colleges and universities offering a high-quality online education. Note that traditional campus-based schools appear here only if they offer an extensive and robust array of online degree programs.
1. Penn State University
Launched in 1998, Penn State World Campus is the online campus of the highly respected Pennsylvania State University.
Penn State World Campus offers has an impressive list of online programs, with more than 120 online programs leading to a variety of undergraduate and graduate degrees, as well as certificate programs.
Penn State World Campus’s online offerings include degrees in fields such as technology, engineering, education, healthcare, business, and more.
Penn State World Campus enrolls more than 10,000 students. After the initial acceptance into the World Campus, students must receive acceptance into the appropriate college for their chosen major at Pennsylvania State University.
Online students receive instruction from the same world-class faculty members as on-campus students. Online students have access to academic advisers, career services, online tutoring, and library services.
World Campus offers courses in an asynchronous format, so students can complete coursework on their schedule. Students must complete readings, assignments, discussions, and exams by set deadlines. Some of Penn State World Campus’s graduate degree programs require a residency period of from a few days to two weeks in length.
Penn State World Campus graduates earn the same degree as traditional Penn State students. Graduates can join the largest alumni network in the United States.
The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education recognizes the Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus as a research university with very high research activity.
U.S. News & World Report ranked Pennsylvania State University-University Park #48 in National Universities in its 2015 edition of Best Colleges. The magazine also ranked the university #52 in its listing of Best Global Universities, #41 in its Best Business Schools list, and #33 in the Best Education Schools list. Penn State also tied for #14 in the magazine’s Top Public Schools list.
Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014 (provided by the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University) ranked Pennsylvania State University-University Park #58. The university also received a #58 ranking from Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2014–2015.
Princeton Review included Pennsylvania State University-University Park in its 2015 Best 379 Colleges list, while Forbes ranked Penn State #76 among Research Universities.
Penn State’s Smeal College of Business ranked #30 in Bloomberg Business’s 2014 Undergraduate Business School Programs list.
A member of the Association of American Universities (an association of excellent North American research universities), Pennsylvania State University received accreditation from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.
Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business also received accreditation from the respected Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (Click on the link below to read more)
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