Earning a master’s degree can benefit your career. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports that workers with a master’s degree earn $1,574 per week, while those with a bachelor’s make $1,334 per week. An extra $240 per week may not seem like much of a difference, but over the course of a year, this adds up to a salary increase of $12,480. If you’re interested in earning a master’s degree and accessing these career benefits, this guide will help you do so as quickly and easily as possible.
What Are The Easiest Majors?
Master’s degree programs for some areas of study are easier to complete than others.
While everyone has their own academic strengths and weaknesses, students often find majors that involve a lot of math or science courses to be particularly difficult. Such subjects are known as hard sciences, which means they are based on experiments with tightly controlled variables that are easy to replicate (e.g. adding one substance to another and analyzing the reaction). Hard science majors include physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, and medicine.
The alternative to hard sciences are the soft sciences (also known as social sciences), which include subjects such as psychology, political science, and economics. Mathematics and experimentation are still involved in these fields, but the math skills required usually don’t go beyond basic statistics, and the experiments tend to have hypotheses that can’t quite be measured exactly and results that are somewhat difficult to replicate (e.g. surveying a sample of the population about their feelings on social issues).
Again, it’s entirely possible for you to have an easier time learning hard sciences than soft sciences. But most students find that it just takes fewer hours of study to learn key concepts and complete assignments for soft science master’s programs, and they tend to require a lower number of credit hours to graduate as well. Indeed, programs for the soft sciences listed below are known to be especially easy to complete:
Communications
Earning this degree will teach you how to be a better communicator. It involves studying topics like leadership, negotiation, conflict resolution, strategic planning, and talent development. Just about every industry needs strong communicators, so this is a great choice for those who would like to keep their career options open once they enter the workforce.
Psychology
Psychology is the study of human behavior. In a master’s program for this subject, you’ll learn about the most cutting edge research regarding emotion, intelligence, perception, brain functioning, and similar topics. This can be a rather lucrative career path — according to the BLS, psychologists earn an average salary of $81,040.
Sociology
Sociology is similar to psychology, though it’s more narrowly focused on the study of social behavior. This is another degree that often leads to high-paying positions, as the BLS reports that the average salary for sociologists is $92,910. You’ll become qualified for other jobs as well, such as substance abuse counselor, human resources manager, and nonprofit director.
Marketing
There are many job opportunities available for those with a Master’s in Marketing — the projected job growth rate over the next decade for market research analysts is 19%, which is much higher than the average for all occupations. And you should be able to earn an exceptionally high salary if you can work your way up to the position of marketing manager, as the average salary for this occupation is $135,030.
Business administration
A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is one of the most valuable degree options in terms of the amount of effort required compared to the potential rewards. Of all the soft sciences, an education in business administration leads to the highest-paying possibilities for your career (if you reach the rank of chief executive, you’ll be able to enjoy an average salary of $179,520).
Is a Master’s Degree Program Right For You?
It’s important to note that, while some majors may be relatively easier than others, earning a master’s degree of any kind still involves a lot of hard work. You can expect each course to require at least a few hours of study per week, which can really add up if you’re taking a full-time courseload of four classes per semester.
In addition to all the time involved, you should consider that master’s degree programs can be expensive. A college education costs somewhere between a few hundred dollars to over a thousand dollars per credit, and most colleges charge more for graduate courses than undergraduate courses. If you’re not able to receive scholarships that cover most of your program, you can expect your master’s degree to end up costing five figures.
Of course, if you have the time and money for it, earning your master’s degree should pay off in the long run. But if you’re already busy or concerned about the cost, a master’s degree program might not be the right choice for you at the moment.
Alternatives
Earning a master’s degree isn’t the only way for bachelor’s degree holders to further their education and improve their career outlook. Your other options include:
- Certificate programs: Many colleges offer post-baccalaureate certificate programs, which allow you to expand your skill set and earn an extra educational credential at a much lower cost than master’s degree programs (they tend to require around 10 to 20 credit hours, while master’s degree programs typically require 30 to 60 credit hours). For example, students who graduate with a Bachelor’s in Sociology could then pursue a Certificate in Social Entrepreneurship rather than a Master’s in Sociology.
- Bootcamps: These accelerated educational programs tend to focus on specific technology skills, such as a particular coding language or software platform. Bootcamps are a great option for professionals who would like to become more proficient with the latest technology in their field (e.g. Bachelor’s in Marketing graduates should consider taking a digital marketing bootcamp that will teach them how to use tools like HubSpot and Google Analytics).
- Mentorships: The most affordable way to learn more about your industry is to find someone experienced, such as a former teacher or current colleague, who is willing to share their knowledge with you for free. By simply reaching out and asking for advice, you may be able to establish a relationship that provides you with an abundance of valuable information.
Whether you choose a master’s degree program or a less involved alternative, making any sort of effort to learn more about your occupation will likely result in better outcomes for your career.
Our Research
This list features some of the easiest online master’s programs in the country. 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 easiest online master’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.
The 38 Easiest Online Master’s Degree Programs
