Top Online Bachelor's in History Programs for 2019
From the fall of the Roman empire to the rise of modern warfare, the study of history is as diverse as its related occupations. According to Payscale , entry-level professionals with a bachelor's degree in history earn a median salary $51,250, and professionals with 10 to 19 years of work experience earn up to $100,000 per year. This page highlights steps to choosing a school and earning an online degree in history.
What are the Best Online Bachelor's in History Programs?
Top 25 Online Bachelors Degrees in History for 2019
Admissions Rate
6%
Graduation Rate
98%
Online Enrollment
7%
Retention Rate
98%
Default Rate
1%
One of the most famous and well-regarded universities in the United States, Harvard University offers online courses for students who cannot physically attend classes at the school's Cambridge, Massachusetts campus. An ideal option for students who to date considered attending Harvard to be an impossible dream, Harvard's covers topics including Chinese history, Middle Age manuscripts, Islamic heritage, the poetry of John Keats, global expeditions from hundreds of years ago, and slavery in the U.S. Harvard offers several incentives to students considering attending its history courses. For one, the school administers program courses completely free of charge. Courses in this program receive no grades, students can start and stop whenever they please, and learners need not formally enroll in courses. Harvard's online school, however, does feature some disadvantages. For example, although students pursue some material entirely online, learners are not guided by professors as they would be in a traditional course.
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What Will I Learn in an Online History Program?
Although online history degree curricula vary by program, most include the courses below. These courses introduce history majors to historically significant figures and events and explore their current implications. Most programs allow students to specialize in areas such as Egyptology or the history of medicine.
World Civilization: This course provides an overview of influential societies and major world events. Students examine social and economic developments, major religions, and warfare and gain knowledge necessary for positions in teaching and curation.
United States History: This topic is frequently broken into two courses, which cover American history before and after the Civil War. Students learn about major events such as the civil rights movement and the country's involvement in the world wars. Historians and politicians rely on knowledge of U.S. history to effect change.
Historical Research: This course emphasizes scholarly training in research design, analysis, and publication and is commonly offered as a capstone course. Students develop a research project, which involves selecting a topic, reviewing primary and secondary sources, and collecting and analyzing data. A strong grasp of research techniques is necessary for careers as academic writers, teachers, and archivists.
What can I do with an Online History Degree?
Graduates with an online history degree pursue diverse career paths, which may involve conducting research, working with archives, curating exhibits at museums, and influencing policies. The following table illustrates careers commonly pursued by graduates of online history degree programs. Median annual earnings are slightly higher than the national average, and opportunities for growth increase as professionals gain experience.
Historians rely on expertise in document analysis to complete job duties such as gathering data on historical events and preserving materials in museums. Historians may work for businesses, nonprofit organizations, or the government. Tasks may include examining legal cases for businesses or conducting research on historical events as part of policy development.
Median Salary: $42,719
Job Outlook and Salary
Graduates with an online history degree frequently pursue careers as archivists, curators, and museum workers. The field is projected to grow 7% from 2014 to 2024, which is the national average for all U.S. occupations. As more information becomes publicly accessible through digitization, demand increases for archivists with expertise in electronic records and records management. The following table shows the projected growth for archivist, curator, and museum worker jobs.
| Employment, 2014 | Projected Employment, 2024 |
|---|---|
| 31,300 | 33,400 |
Salary Growth by Experience
After earning an online history degree, graduates begin acquiring field experience that results in higher incomes. The following table highlights the salaries for three common careers in the field of history. Graduates of online history degree programs typically earn higher salaries as they gain experience, with pay increasing as much as $20,000 over 20 years.
To determine the best online bachelor's in history programs, we looked at the most important factors prospective students, mainly common predictors of future success and a school's commitment to online programs. This boils down to admissions rate, student loan default rate, retention rate, graduation rate, and the percent of students enrolled in online classes. All data points are taken from information provided by colleges and universities to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Each factor is weighted evenly in order to give an objective view and determine the best online bachelor's in history programs. To calculate our rankings, we looked at a school's ranking when organized by a single factor, and then averaged each category's ranking to find an overall score: Admissions Rate (20%) + Default Rate (20%) + Retention Rate (20%) + Graduation Rate (20%) + Percent of Students Enrolled in Online Classes (20%) = Final score.