UTA is No. 20 nationwide in Best Online College list, highlighting schools with best value
The University of Texas at Arlington is No. 20 nationally and one of only two Texas universities included in the SR Education Group’s 2019 list of the Best Online Colleges, which highlights schools providing top value.
The SR Education Group researched 723 schools and published more 250 program rankings, compiling a list of institutions known nationwide for their research strength and academic excellence. The organization’s Guide to Online Schools rankings are the first of their kind to use recent alumni salary data and manually researched tuitions to provide a list of schools offering the best value to students.
Teik C. Lim, UTA’s provost and vice president for academic affairs, said UTA is on the leading edge in providing online education to thousands of students.
“Online courses provide more access to more students, making a college degree more attainable to thousands of UTA students every year,” Lim said. “It makes us a stronger university, better able to serve our thriving state and meet the workforce needs of our region.”
Online programs in nursing, education, social work, public administration and others have proven popular and successful options for UTA students.
“By many measures—including enrollment, degrees awarded and increasing demand from employers—these programs are proving successful,” Lim said.
During the 2017-18 academic year, UTA offered 761 online courses. Nearly 38,000 UTA students enrolled in at least one online course in that time period.
To be considered for the Best Online Colleges overall list, institutions needed to offer at least 10 fully online degrees at the bachelor’s and/or master’s level with programs that cover at least five subject areas. SR Education Group used PayScale salaries that reflect mid-career wages of alumni from each school. The website also looked at in-state tuition rates offered to all online students. Website staff manually researched tuitions and reflected the lowest tuition rate available at the specified degree level. The data was collected in August 2018.
The rankings listed UTA’s median mid-career salary for alumni with bachelor’s degrees as $87,600, and the median mid-career salary for alumni with advanced degrees as $102,600.
“In these lists, we identify colleges we believe are worth the investment because of their low tuitions and high median alumni salaries as reported by PayScale,” the SR Education Group noted on its website.
UTA has earned a number of recent accolades for the high quality of its online education, including the following:
- The College of Education’s online master’s program in curriculum and instruction was ranked No. 1 in the nation by College Choice for 2018.
- College Consensus ranked UTA No. 18 in the country on its 2019 “Most Innovative Online Colleges” list.
- In 2018 UTA was named one of the best online colleges in the nation for nontraditional students by OnlineColleges.com. It came in at No. 8 on the list.