Want to work in healthcare management? While this is one of the most promising career paths available, completing the required education can be costly. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that both public and private nonprofit colleges have high tuition fees. On average, public institutions charge around $9,400 per year, while private nonprofits charge about four times that amount. This guide will show you the most affordable online healthcare management programs in the country, and we’ll also help you confirm whether this particular major, as well as online degree programs in general, are right for you.
The Pros and Cons of Majoring in Healthcare Management
If your main priority for choosing a college major is economic security, you can’t do much better than healthcare management. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, medical and health services managers make an average salary of $101,340 per year, more than double the overall average for all occupations. Also, the projected job growth for healthcare managers over the next decade is 28%, much faster than average (in raw numbers, there is expected to be a net increase of 136,200 jobs for healthcare managers).
In addition to the high salaries and endless job opportunities, it’s worth noting that this occupation can be rewarding on a deeper level. As a healthcare manager, you’ll help provide one of society’s most essential services. Your work will make healthcare facilities more efficient and effective, allowing those in need to receive high-quality treatment for injuries and diseases quickly.
This job isn’t for everyone, though. Management occupations can be stressful and often don’t offer a great work-life balance. Even if you are committed to a management career, a degree in healthcare management is somewhat limiting. A less narrow major, such as business administration, would open up a broader selection of career paths. And if you’re interested in healthcare, a more hands-on role like nursing or sonography might be a better match for your interests and skill set.
Pros
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High average salary -
Strong projected job growth
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Fulfilling career that makes a positive impact on the community
Cons
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Compared to most other jobs, the work can be stressful and time-consuming -
A degree in business administration would be more versatile
Should You Earn Your Degree Online?
There may have been a time when most employers were suspicious of online degrees, but this is no longer true.
These days, around 60% of college students take at least some online classes, with roughly 30% taking online classes exclusively. This form of education has simply become too mainstream to dismiss. Indeed, a Northwestern University study found that 55% of HR leaders believe that degrees earned online are generally equivalent to degrees earned in person, and another 6% believe that online degree programs are actually better than in-person alternatives. Also, 71% of HR leaders have personally hired someone with an online degree.
Most employers don’t care whether or not you earned your degree online. Just as with in-person degree programs, accreditation is the key to earning an online degree that employers will respect.
At the very least, you should only consider schools approved by a regional accrediting organization recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). Specifically, you should be looking for one of the following accreditations when evaluating your school choices (each of these organizations is responsible for accrediting colleges in a different part of the country, so you’ll only see one of these names and not the others for any given school):
- Higher Learning Commission (HLC)
- Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE)
- New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE)
- Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU)
- Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC)
- WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC)
These organizations use methods such as peer review and site visits to ensure colleges provide an adequate education for their students. If you attend a school that isn’t accredited, there’s a good chance you won’t receive the type of coursework and instruction that you will need to truly prepare for your future career. For this reason, many employers won’t view your college education as legitimate, and you’ll have a much harder time getting hired.
If you’re earning your master’s, the program you attend will ideally be accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME) as well. While regional accrediting organizations evaluate entire institutions, programmatic accrediting organizations like CAHME focus on the degree programs offered for specific majors.
By attending one of the CAHME-accredited programs, you can be confident that you will receive the best education available for healthcare management. There are also other benefits, including exclusive scholarship opportunities, post-grad fellowships, and industry partnerships.
So, if you want to earn your healthcare management degree online, that shouldn’t be a problem as long as your program is appropriately accredited. Online degree programs are an excellent option for students who prefer to learn at their own pace, and you’ll save a lot of time by eliminating the need to commute to campus. The only reason to choose an in-person program instead is if you prefer the social aspect of the traditional college experience.
Our Research
This list features some of the country’s cheapest online healthcare management degree programs. Each school featured is a nonprofit, accredited institution, either public or private, with a high standard of academic quality for post-secondary institutions.
We evaluated each school’s program on tuition costs, admission, retention and graduation rates, faculty, and reputation. Then, we calculated the Intelligent Score on a scale of 0 to 100. Read more about our ranking methodology.
Next, we compared this comprehensive list of the cheapest online healthcare management degree programs to a list of aggregated college rankings from reputable publications, such as U.S. News & World Report, to simplify a student’s college search. We pored through these rankings so students don’t have to.
The 50 Cheapest Online Healthcare Management Degree Programs
