Top best online colleges

The 25 best USA online colleges

The number of students involved in online education grows steadily year by year. Sometimes it is the only opportunity to balance work, family and study, using every spare moment to improve professional knowledge and move ahead in a career. And it is a unique chance for international students to obtain a degree from accredited colleges in the United States through distance learning. Along with this, many educational institutions offer a wide range of different graduate programs. How to compare them and make a choice?

The table below includes the best US colleges for this year, offering 100% online degrees at the bachelor's level or higher in three disciplines: Business, Engineering and Information Technology (IT). Why did we choose these three? Because they are most in demand by employers.

Our current ranking is based on the U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings of online graduate programs in Business, Engineering and IT. All represented educational institutions are accredited and ranked by their score in each separate discipline (from higher to lower).

List of the 25 best colleges in the USA offering 100% online programs for 2017

Rank	College	Program Score	Graduate Program	Total enrollment	Homepage
1	University of California, Los Angeles (Samueli)Los Angeles, CA	100	Engineering	329	www.msol.ucla.edu
2	University of Southern CaliforniaLos Angeles, CA	10097	ITEngineering	105828	gapp.usc.edu/den/programs
3	Columbia University (Fu Foundation)New York, NY	93	Engineering	296	www.cvn.columbia.edu
4	Florida State UniversityTallahassee, FL	9250	BusinessIT	6844	business.fsu.edu/academics/graduate-programs/online-programs
5	University of Texas at DallasRichardson, TX	92	Business	232	www.utdallas.edu/elearning/online-programs/
6	Virginia TechBlacksburg, VA	88	IT	369	www.vtmit.vt.edu
7	Boston UniversityBoston, MA	8775	BusinessIT	727879	www.bu.edu/online/programs/
8	Penn State World CampusUniversity Park, PA	8674	EngineeringIT	740286	www.worldcampus.psu.edu
9	Purdue UniversityWest Lafayette, IN	84	Engineering	770	engineering.purdue.edu/ProEd/
10	West Texas A&M UniversityCanyon, TX	78	Business	50	www.wtamu.edu/academics/college-business.aspx
11	Creighton UniversityOmaha, NE	76	Business	175	online.creighton.edu
12	Mississippi State University (Bagley)Mississippi State, MS	76	Engineering	175	www.bcoeonline.msstate.edu
13	Quinnipiac UniversityHamden, CT	75	Business	413	quonline.quinnipiac.edu/online-programs/
14	Rutgers University - NewarkNewark, NJ	75	Business	105	online.rutgers.edu/master-business-admin/
15	Missouri University of Science and TechnologyRolla, MO	736863	EngineeringBusinessIT	9989061	dce.mst.edu
16	University of Alabama (Manderson)Tuscaloosa, AL	73	Business	105	culverhouse.ua.edu/academics/online
17	Johns Hopkins University (Whiting)Baltimore, MD	7167	EngineeringIT	2,226767	ep.jhu.edu/programs-and-courses/program-pathways/online
18	Northeastern UniversityBoston, MA	70	Business	199	onlinebusiness.northeastern.edu
19	Arizona State University (Fulton)Tempe, AZ	70	Engineering	345	asuengineeringonline.com
20	New York University (Tandon)New York, NY	70	Engineering	134	engineering.nyu.edu/academics/online
21	North Carolina State UniversityRaleigh, NC	7064	EngineeringIT	65954	engineeringonline.ncsu.edu
22	University of Nebraska-LincolnLincoln, NE	70	Engineering	46	engineering.unl.edu/graduate-programs/master-engineering-management/
23	Texas Tech University (Whitacre)Lubbock, TX	6960	EngineeringIT	12833	aln.coe.ttu.edu/alnweb/
24	University of Maryland (Clark)College Park, MD	69	Engineering	427	advancedengineering.umd.edu
25	Florida Atlantic UniversityBoca Raton, FL	67	Business	353	business.fau.edu