Online programs range from diploma mills employers knowingly screen against to brand name universities issuing degrees equally valued by employers and employees.
But many online degrees teach you skills employers will readily pay a premium for and will give you great employment opportunities.
Here are the 5 best online degrees for employment.
Accounting
We still pay people quite a bit of money to keep track of our money, whether as individuals or organizations as a whole. Those with a degree in accounting earn more than the average person with a business degree.
If you upgrade to a master’s degree in accounting, you’re well on your way to a lucrative position as a CPA.
If you specialize in tax accounting, you would work as a tax preparer full time or seasonally, while those working in bookkeeping are well paid whether working full time or part-time.
If you earn a degree in accounting after working as a life coach or personal development, you could become a personal finance advisor. Or simply work in accounting, a field expected to grow 13% over the next ten years despite the increasing use of personal accounting software.
Marketing
Businesses pay people to find out how to better understand their customers and speak to them. This is why marketing assistants earn thirty to sixty thousand dollars a year, while experienced marketers earn much more.
If you have copywriting skills like determining which keywords should be integrated into a webpage to put it front and center before a target demographic when they’re ready to buy, you’ll make even more.
If you have a track record of success or management skills, you could easily earn a hundred thousand dollars a year running a marketing department. Not only that, but online marketing degrees are highly respected since marketing and other financial degrees transfer very well online.
Human Resources
Human Resources has become far more complex over the past few years as rules and regulations that companies have to abide by exploded in number.
Hiring, firing, promotions, and training have to be done per complex procedures if you want to minimize the risk of a lawsuit. And whether it is required by state law or guidelines set by federal contracts, you have to fill out a number of reports each month, quarter and year on your workforce.
This means that working in HR is no longer something you do when you want a break from ordering office supplies. It requires training in the law, industry-specific software and procedures.
If you earn an online degree in Human Resources, you’ll be eagerly sought after by many companies’ personnel departments.
Video Game Design
While Hollywood’s blockbuster seasons get reported on the news, the reality is that people spend several times that much on video games per year.
This money is increasingly spent on digital releases over physically purchased game disks, and spending is shifting toward subscription services and apps.
The sheer amount of money means that even free games that make money through advertising or in-game purchases have to look good, while expensive games have to offer rich visuals to keep the audience engaged.
This has led to the appearance of video game design and video game arts as its own degree program, separate from the general graphic arts. If you have this expertise, you’ll find decent paying jobs with a number of companies as well as gaming app startups. And this degree means you don’t have to spend a lot of time learning to code, either.
Not only that, but with an online degree in video game design, you could get the foundation to create your own video game development company, all from the comfort of your home.
Database Administration
IT is a hot degree today, but learning how to code can seem daunting, and staying up to date with the constantly evolving programming languages is a challenge.
Conversely, database software has been relatively stable, and companies are seeing their stored data grow by 10% a year or more. The solution is larger and more complex databases and more database administrators.
If you earn a degree in database administration, you could work in a number of industries. Whether you’re controlling access to product data, managing customer data or mining data from the IoT, you have a good career in IT ahead of you.
And with the advent of Big Data and advanced data analytics, database administration degrees should continue to be in high demand for years to come.
All these careers have great prospects and adapt themselves very well to online education. This will not only mean that employers will be more inclined to consider you but will give you the same full spectrum of skills any traditional degree would.
