2012 Non-Profit Online College Rankings
Overall Rankings - Methodology - Other Rankings Data
While for-profit universities—schools operated by private, profit-seeking businesses—long dominated the online education landscape, more and more traditional and public universities have been creating and expanding online programs. Now many local, community colleges offer online programs, as do many state schools.
To help students who are trying to choose the right school, we have put together this list of the top 25 online, non-profit schools. We've collected data that we think are important for making the right education decision like accreditation, graduation rate, tuition fees, student loan repayment rate, and more.
For more information on how we chose our schools and what the different ranking criteria mean, please check out our methodology section.
Overall Rankings
The table below shows the overall rank of every non-profit school that made our top 30 list. To find more information on any of the schools, simply click the school's name and you will be taken to a page with supplementary information. If you would like to learn more about our ranking criteria and how we used it to make our list, please visit our methodology section.
Rank |
School |
Repayment Rate |
Retention Rate |
Tuition |
Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # 1 | University of Wisconsin | 78% | 80% | $14,933 | 81.32 |
| # 2 | University of Minnesota | 69% | 81% | $11,532 | 81.22 |
| # 3 | State University of New York | 66% | 87% | $14,545 | 79.26 |
| # 4 | Iowa State University | 73% | 86% | $18,563 | 77.88 |
| # 5 | Chadron State College | 71% | 70% | $8,936 | 77.13 |
| # 6 | North Carolina State University | 71% | 88% | $19,064 | 76.99 |
| # 7 | Missouri University of Science and Technology | 75% | 85% | $20,543 | 75.20 |
| # 8 | Northwestern State University of Louisiana | 70% | 71% | $12,203 | 74.78 |
| # 9 | University of Houston | 64% | 82% | $14,782 | 74.72 |
| # 10 | Virginia Tech | 77% | 92% | $23,217 | 74.44 |
| # 11 | University of North Dakota Online | 68% | 79% | $16,373 | 74.08 |
| # 12 | Texas A&M University - Grad | 74% | 91% | $22,817 | 73.65 |
| # 13 | University of Nebraska School of Allied Health Professions | 61% | 75% | $7,530 | 73.26 |
| # 14 | University of Kentucky | 65% | 82% | $17,678 | 71.80 |
| # 15 | University of Missouri | 69% | 84% | $20,516 | 71.59 |
| # 16 | Plymouth State University | 70% | 76% | $18,076 | 71.06 |
| # 17 | University of Massachusetts-Amherst | 72% | 89% | $23,813 | 70.36 |
| # 18 | Georgia Institute of Technology | 80% | 94% | $26,926 | 70.08 |
| # 19 | Washington State University | 68% | 82% | $20,531 | 69.78 |
| # 20 | Michigan Technological University | 79% | 81% | $24,527 | 67.84 |
| # 21 | UNC Kenan-Flager Business School | 79% | 96% | $29,390 | 67.01 |
| # 22 | University of Washington | 68% | 93% | $25,329 | 66.88 |
| # 23 | Haywood Community College | 58% | 70% | $8,053 | 66.67 |
| # 24 | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | 71% | 94% | $27,238 | 66.22 |
| # 25 | Brandman University Online | 55% | 75% | $9,611 | 65.83 |
| # 26 | Saint Francis University | 75% | 85% | $26,534 | 65.73 |
| # 27 | Colorado State University-Global | 67% | 83% | $23,095 | 65.49 |
| # 28 | University of Alaska | 62% | 71% | $15,776 | 64.59 |
| # 29 | North Carolina A&T State University | 59% | 72% | $13,858 | 64.49 |
| # 30 | Mississippi State University | 52% | 82% | $13,801 | 63.49 |
Methodology
Our primary goal with our annual rankings is to create a standardized, comprehensive, and trustworthy way to rank schools. With this list, we are focusing on non-profit schools. If you would like to see our full list, please check out our 2012 Online College Rankings, which include both non-profit and for-profit institutions.
Our general ranking criteria is explained on our main 2012 Online College Rankings page. There are 2 differences we would like to spell out here:
- Only non-profit colleges were considered for this list. We used the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to determine this status.
- We did not take our student feedback into account when ranking these schools. Many of these schools are new to our site so we have limited data; therefore, we did not want to exclude schools based on this factor.
Other Rankings Data
We rank more than just non-profit schools, so if you're looking for an overall list of the top online schools or military-friendly schools, please check out our other rankings:
Rankings Archive
Ask an Expert
See All AnswersAsk An Expert: Real Questions, Expert Answers
Regional accreditation is the most widely accepted form of accreditation. The main thing to consider when picking a regionally or nationally accredited school is the transferring of credits from one school to another. While nationally accredited institutions will usually accept credit from regionally or nationally accredited institutions, regionally accredited schools often do not accept credit from nationally accredited institutions.
Yes, Capella University is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, The Higher Learning Commission.
