Online Colleges - Rankings

OEDb's Online College Rankings 2007
Online higher education is growing, but a lack of transparency is preventing it from reaching its full potential. Even though online colleges are now receiving increased respect from top employers, diploma mills and the like limit the prestige of a legitimate online degree. OEDb thinks more transparency is a good thing; a set of objective, quantitative rankings — however imperfect — should help shed some light on the relative attractiveness of the most popular accredited online colleges.

These rankings have been produced by OEDb, a database of accredited online education programs. In the rankings OEDb included the most significant degree-granting undergraduate online colleges that operate nationally, as determined by our selection criteria. To our knowledge, these online college rankings are the first of their
kind.

For each college, OEDb gathered data for eight different metrics — acceptance rate, financial aid, graduation rate, peer Web citations, retention rate, scholarly citations, student-faculty ratio, and years accredited. The overall ranking, shown below, ranks each college by its average ranking for each metric for which data was available.

Overall Results
This table simply shows the overall ranking of each college, with its average rank in the right-hand column reflecting the sum of all of its ranks divided by the number of metrics for which data was found for that particular college.
Overall Results with Metric Data
Overall Rank College Average Rank
1 Grand Canyon University 6.08
2 Florida Metropolitan University 7.98
3 American InterContinental University 8.63
4 Capella University 9.12
5 Fisher College 9.16
6 Colorado Technical University 9.25
7 Post University 9.26
8 University of Maryland University College 9.27
9 Bellevue University 9.73
10 Westwood College 9.83
11 City University 9.92
12 Western International University 10.81
13 Jones International University 11.14
14 Western Governors University 11.36
15 University of Phoenix 11.48
16 Granite State College 12.27
17 South University 12.42
18 Strayer University 13.33
19 Cardean University 13.67
20 Northcentral University 13.93
21 Central Texas College 14.43

This table, ordered by the overall ranking of each college, shows each college's average rank and the data gathered for each of the eight metrics. In the interest of conserving space, we have abbreviated the name of each college. Mouse over each abbreviation to view the full name of each college. The OEDb has also abbreviated the names of all of the metrics in the table header. Key to metric acronyms — AR: Acceptance Rate, FA: Financial Aid, GR: Graduation Rate, PW: Peer Web Citations, RR: Retention Rate, SC: Scholarly Citations, SF: Student-Faculty Ratio, YA: Years Accredited

Overall Results with Metric Ranks
This table, ordered by the overall ranking of each college, shows each college's average rank and the rank or adjusted rank of that college for each of the eight metrics. In the interest of conserving space, OEDb abbreviated the name of each college.
Mouse over each abbreviation to view the full name of each college.

OEDb also abbreviated the names of all of the metrics in the table header. Key to metric acronyms — AR: Acceptance Rate, FA: Financial Aid, GR: Graduation Rate, PW: Peer Web Citations, RR: Retention Rate, SC: Scholarly Citations, SF: Student-Faculty
Ratio, YA: Years Accredited Rank College Avg. Rank
AR FA GR PW RR SC SF YA
1 GCU 6.08 33.2% 92% 49% 82 56% 192 16:1 39
2 FMU 7.98 68.6% 67% 64% 564 46% 24 17:1 38
3 AICU 8.63 46.3% 73% – 492 – 145 – 19
4 CapU 9.12 87.2% – – 480 – 1,050 – 10
5 FC 9.16 66.6% 76% – 46 81% 177 18:1 36
6 CTU 9.25 35.6% 86% – 78 – 174 20:1 26
7 PU 9.26 62.4% 93% 33% 27 64% 9 13:1 34
8 UMUC 9.27 100.0% 61% 16% 10,600 39% 1,110 20:1 60
9 BU 9.73 100.0% 60% 28% 249 63% 101 15:1 30
10 WC 9.83 48.0% 63% 44% 54 31% 21 13:1 38
11 CiU 9.92 100.0% 46% – 266 – 24 7:1 28
12 WIU 10.81 77.7% 99% 24% 67 24% 79 10:1 23
13 JIU 11.14 58.6% – – 247 – 351 23:1 8
14 WGU 11.36 100.0% 44% – 546 76% 834 56:1 5
15 UP 11.48 100.0% 4% 4% 1,019 31% 3,020 16:1 28
16 GSC 12.27 100.0% 36% 18% 241 61% 9 10:1 26
17 SoU 12.42 92.0% 100% 24% 54 20% 14 13:1 21
18 StU 13.33 100.0% 40% 20% 183 38% 146 20:1 25
19 CarU 13.67 – – – 66 – 215 – 5
20 NU 13.93 100.0% 0% – 78 88% 68 – 4
21 CTC 14.43 100.0% 37% 9% 49 40% 137 40:1 38
Rank College
Avg.
Rank
AR FA GR PW RR SC SF YA
1 GCU 6.08 1 4.53 2.82 12 9.57 7 9.75 2

Ranking Metrics
You may wish to view the rankings for each individual metric.
- Acceptance Rate
- Financial Aid
- Graduation Rate
- Peer Web Citations
- Retention Rate
- Scholarly Citations
- Student-Faculty Ratio
- Years Accredited

Learn More About This Study
For further information regarding these rankings, you are encouraged to consult the indepth documentation of our methodology; you may also wish to read about who the OEDb is and why they conducted this study.

2008 Online College Rankings