Vermont Business Magazine From the vital job of protecting the network security of a large, thriving organization to designing your own video game that screams innovation and vision, a degree in software engineering is guaranteed to advance your career. In the next few years, the employment of software engineers is projected to increase by a huge 22 percent. Furthermore, those engineers will make, on average, an annual salary of $100,690, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And these numbers reflect just those engineers who have a Bachelor’s of Science degree. Both employment rate and salary go up exponentially for those with advanced degrees.
Online undergraduate programs in software engineering are an affordable, accessible, and flexible way to earn your BS in software engineering. If you find yourself in a situation that makes going back to school or enrolling for the first time either logistically or financially problematic, then getting an online degree can be a great option for you. Despite the stigma online programs once held, they have mostly shed those stereotypes and have increasingly solid reputations, in large part because online programs are developed and taught by the same faculty who teach the traditional, on-campus courses. And in most cases, the diploma looks exactly the same as those garnered by “traditional students,” yet it was obtained at half the price.
College Choice is an independent online publication dedicated to helping students and their families find the right college. Here is a link to the full ranking: http://www.collegechoice.net/rankings/best-online-software-engineering-degrees/. College Choice collated and compared the academic reputation, student satisfaction, affordability, and average annual salary of early career software engineering from online programs across the country to create a definitive ranking of the nation’s fifteen best. We first chose programs with the most renowned academic reputation and from those pared the list down to those with high retention rates—a reflection of student satisfaction—added those with the most economical accessibility, and finally we included the averages of early career salaries (care of PayScale) to arrive at a list marked by thorough research and extensive data aggregation. Our figures come from the university and colleges’ websites as well as nationally recognized U.S. News & World Report and The National Center for Education Statistics.