Quickest Online Bachelor’s Degree Programs

Updated: April 27, 2023

Earning a bachelor’s degree is one of the most effective ways to advance your career. Many occupations require this level of education for entry-level positions. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows that workers with a bachelor’s degree earn much more money and have a lower unemployment rate than those with less education. Even with the convenience that online programs provide, earning a bachelor’s degree always requires a good deal of time and effort, though some schools are more demanding than others. This guide will show you which colleges are your best options for quickly completing an online bachelor’s degree program.

How to Earn Your Bachelor’s Degree As Fast As Possible

There are a variety of factors involved with how long it will take for you to complete a bachelor’s degree program. When deciding which program you will attend, for each option, you should consider the number of credits required, how many credits you can earn through prior learning assessment, and whether the program is offered in an accelerated format.

Number of credits required

Bachelor’s programs generally require you to complete 120 credit hours of coursework to earn your degree. It’s not unusual, though, for more credit hours to be needed. Many programs require 125 to 130 credit hours, and some (especially in STEM subject areas) require up to 140.

Most schools consider 12 credit hours a full-time semester, so an extra 5 to 20 credit hours could end up setting you back by up to two semesters (or even more if you’re a part-time student). To save time, select a program that doesn’t require more than 120 credit hours, if possible.

Prior learning assessment

It’s also important to consider how many credit hours you may be able to earn toward your bachelor’s degree before you even complete any college coursework. The most common ways to acquire credit hours through prior learning assessments include:

Examination credits: Did you take any Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses in high school? For each AP or IB exam that you passed, you should be able to get some college credit. Also, there are nearly 3,000 colleges in the country that allow you to earn credits through the College-Level Examination Program (CLEP), and there may be a state-level college credit examination program available to you as well.

Military experience: Many colleges offer prior learning assessment credits for military training and experience. The number of credits you can earn for this will be determined by factors such as how long you served in the military, how well your military occupation code matches your chosen area of study, etc.

Professional training: If you’ve already earned certifications from reputable organizations such as CompTIA, Cisco, and the Project Management Institute, you may be able to earn college credit for courses that cover similar topics as your professional training.

Every school has different policies regarding prior learning assessment. You likely won’t be able to tell exactly how many credits you can get from any given college by just looking at their website. So, if you believe you can earn a considerable number of credits through prior learning assessment, we recommend contacting the admissions department of each college you’re considering to get a better sense of their policies.

Accelerated programs

Finally, you should see if any accelerated bachelor’s programs are available for your area of study.

Here’s how these programs work: while most college courses take 12 to 15 weeks to complete, accelerated bachelor’s programs offer classes that can be finished in 5 to 10 weeks. Compressing the amount of time it takes to complete each course will compress the total amount of time it takes to earn your bachelor’s degree.

Of course, there are some challenges that you should consider before committing to an accelerated bachelor’s degree program. You’ll be expected to learn the same material as you would on a standard course but with much less time. If you’re not a particularly strong student, you might not be able to keep up with accelerated courses.

Your abilities as a student aren’t the only factor you should consider when deciding on whether you will attend an accelerated program. Do you have time-consuming responsibilities outside school, such as working full-time or caring for children? No matter how gifted you may be academically, you’ll probably need a lot of free time on a day-to-day basis to complete your assignments and study for exams in accelerated courses. Taking on more than you can handle could even result in you failing classes, which would only delay the completion of your bachelor’s program.

Finally, be sure not to confuse accelerated bachelor’s programs with accelerated bachelor’s-to-master’s programs, also known as 4+1 programs.

The latter option is a more popular degree program format. It allows high-achieving undergraduate students to take graduate-level courses as electives (such courses would count toward both your bachelor’s and master’s). While this will help you earn a master’s degree faster, it won’t reduce the time it takes to earn your bachelor’s.

Our Research

This list features some of the country’s quickest online bachelor’s 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 quickest online bachelor’s 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.