10 Low-Cost Online Graduate Education Programs for Out-of-State Students
The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. Be sure to explore The Short List: College, The Short List: Grad School and The Short List: Online Programs to find data that matter to you in your college or grad school search.
While earning an online master's degree in education can open the door to a higher salary or a new teaching opportunity -- and some school districts even require it after a couple of years in the profession -- it still comes with the price tag of paying for grad school.
One way for prospective students to evaluate an online master's program in education -- other than by reputation and specialization -- is looking at the cost per credit, which varies among out-of-state programs, for example.
[Learn about the challenges of pursuing an online graduate degree in education.]
For students looking at an out-of-state program, the per-credit cost for out-of-state students pursuing online master's degrees in education ranged from $203 to $1,850 in 2015-2016, according to data reported by 252 ranked schools to U.S. News in an annual survey. The University of Texas of the Permian Basin charged the least with $203 per credit, compared with the University of Miami, where tuition was $1,850 per credit.
Out-of-state students studying in a graduate online education program, on average, paid about $612 per credit -- a 3 percent increase compared with the prior school year. Among the top 10 schools with the lowest per-credit fees for out-of-state students, the average cost per credit was $260.
[Get tips on paying for an online education.]
Many of the lowest per-credit costs for out-of-state students were at schools based in the Southwest or Midwest with the majority -- six in total -- located in the Lone Star State.
Below are the 10 online graduate education programs with the lowest out-of-state, part-time tuition on a per-credit basis. Unranked schools, which did not meet certain criteria required by U.S. News to be numerically ranked, were not considered for this report.
School name (state) | Part-time, per-credit, out-of-state tuition (2015-2016) | U.S. News rank |
$203 | 136 (tie) | |
$225 | RNP* | |
$235 | 78 (tie) | |
$253 | 48 (tie) | |
$270 | 78 (tie) | |
$273 | 30 (tie) | |
$281 | RNP | |
$285 | 30 (tie) | |
$286 | 83 (tie) | |
$291 | RNP |
* RNP denotes an institution that is ranked in the bottom one-fourth of all rank-eligible online master's programs in education. U.S. News calculates a rank for the school but has decided not to publish it.
School officials can access historical data and rankings, including of peer institutions, via U.S. News Academic Insights.
U.S. News surveyed 252 schools for our 2015 survey of online graduate education programs. Schools self-reported myriad data regarding their academic programs and the makeup of their student body, among other areas, making U.S. News' data the most accurate and detailed collection of college facts and figures of its kind. While U.S. News uses much of this survey data to rank schools for our annual Best Online Graduate Education Programs rankings, the data can also be useful when examined on a smaller scale. U.S. News will now produce lists of data, separate from the overall rankings, meant to provide students and parents a means to find which schools excel, or have room to grow, in specific areas that are important to them. While the data come from the schools themselves, these lists are not related to, and have no influence over, U.S. News' rankings of Best Colleges, Best Graduate Schools or Best Online Programs. The tuition data above are correct as of Aug. 23, 2016.
Farran Powell is an education reporter at U.S. News, covering paying for college and graduate school. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at fpowell@usnews.com.
