Survey: Best buys in online business colleges

With online education growing more popular, a recent survey has ranked the most affordable online business colleges.

Coming in No. 1 as most affordable was East Carolina University in North Carolina, according to the survey released Wednesday by GetEducated.com. Residents of the state can pay $11,880 for an online bachelor's degree in business, though out-of-state students pay a less modest $54,480 for the same degree.

The University of Wyoming came in second with its bachelor's in business administration program costing $16,080 for all online students, in or out of state.

Top five online colleges ranked by affordability

(Credit: GetEducated.com)

GetEducated.com graded online schools with an A-F scale for affordability. Coming in at the bottom was Drexel University in New York, which earned an F as the costliest business school, charging $103,500 for its bachelor of science in general studies/business degree.

In scouting out online colleges, GetEducated founder Vicky Phillips advises students to "look for public universities where tuition is naturally low. Public colleges are already subsidized by your tax dollars. Almost 70 percent of residential colleges now offer their most popular degrees online."

GetEducated.com is a consumer group that rates online colleges for cost and quality of education. The latest rankings were based on the group's spring survey of online business and management bachelor's degrees. GetEducated.com compared tuition costs at 83 online-learning bachelor's programs offered by accredited universities in the U.S.

[monkeyfun14]

5x more is a bit much is it not? I mean I understand giving the locals a break but damn.

[Pishkado]

Whose taxes support it in the first place? You probably have a state school. Want to save money? Use it. Don't like it? Complain to your legislature, not here.

[biffhenerson]

A degree On-line. What a joke. Is the goal to do as little as possible to get a piece of paper or to get an actual education? Oh well, maybe it will help their self esteem to accomplish something no mater how trivial. But I certainly wont think much of it if I see it on their resume.

[KingsImperial]

how is an offline degree less of a joke than an online degree? same amount of time, same text, same lectures, same instructors, same work....

[biffhenerson]

Actually on-line versus in person are very very different just as this thread is very different than having a face to face conversation. Yet they both take time, involve text, people, etc. Typing text is not the same as talking in person. There is no way you can experiance a University education remotely. You gotta be there!

[jmfb_k7]

I would much rather go to an online university than a real school. I work 8-5 and dont have time to go to class each night or even three nights a week. With an online university, I can actually complete school while I'm at work (there is so much downtime, I would just do online classes instead of browsing the internet). Besides, companies dont really care which school you went to, they just want the peice of paper. I've been passed up for a promo so many times because I dont have one of those peices of paper, but the kids they bring in that do, dont know what they are doing so I end up doing their work too, except they get the paycheck.

[dan_soschin]

This report left out some accredited programs... such as American Public University (apus.edu)... Their MBA is $9,900.

[lcoll9]

@dan_soschin: The report covered online bachelor's in business programs, not MBAs.