Online Degrees with the Best ROI in Tech Fields

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• ROI (Return on Invest­ment) is a crit­i­cal fac­tor when choos­ing a tech degree. It mea­sures the poten­tial income a degree offers com­pared to its cost.
• Degrees with high ROI ensure that grad­u­ates can earn a sub­stan­tial income rel­a­tive to the amount spent on edu­ca­tion, which is espe­cial­ly impor­tant giv­en the high costs of many tech programs.
• Some of the high­est-pay­ing tech careers include soft­ware devel­op­ment, data sci­ence and ana­lyt­ics, cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and machine learn­ing, and net­work admin­is­tra­tion.
• When choos­ing an online tech pro­gram, it’s essen­tial to con­sid­er fac­tors such as accred­i­ta­tion, cur­ricu­lum rel­e­vance, school rep­u­ta­tion, stu­dent suc­cess rates, and indus­try part­ner­ships.

One of the best advan­tages of online tech degrees is that you can get the edu­ca­tion and train­ing you need to advance your career from the com­fort of your home. Bet­ter still, there are many dif­fer­ent degree options you can pursue.

But what are the best ROI tech degrees?

This guide helps you acquire the skills need­ed to eval­u­ate online degrees and choose the pro­gram that gives you the most bang for your buck. 

Relat­ed:

• Best Online Bach­e­lors of Data Sci­ence Programs
• Accel­er­at­ed Engi­neer­ing Degrees for Future Innovators
• Fastest Online Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Degree Bachelor’s Programs
• Best Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Degree Programs

Understanding ROI in Education

ROI, or return on invest­ment, refers to the income poten­tial a degree offers com­pared to its cost. An online tech degree that costs $25,000 but leads to a career that earns you $150,000 per year has great ROI. Con­verse­ly, spend­ing $150,000 on an online data sci­ence degree that leads to a job pay­ing $25,000 per year doesn’t have good ROI at all.

ROI is impor­tant for any degree. How­ev­er, the stakes are high­er for tech-relat­ed degrees because many top pro­grams are also quite expen­sive. For many stu­dents, pay­ing for a col­lege edu­ca­tion involves tak­ing out stu­dent loans. With a high­er expense for school comes the need for more loans, so get­ting a sol­id return on that invest­ment is paramount.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the tech indus­try is chang­ing very rapid­ly. The knowl­edge and skills you learn today in an online data sci­ence degree or an online soft­ware devel­op­ment degree will need to be sup­ple­ment­ed as the field advances. The best online tech degrees pre­pare you for these rapid changes and pro­vide improved ROI.

A relat­ed point is this: ROI indi­cates how well your degree match­es up with indus­try demands. So, a high ROI pro­gram con­tin­u­ous­ly changes and adapts to new indus­try trends. This ensures you have cut­ting-edge train­ing that will help you land a good job after you graduate.

You want a degree that fol­lows tech indus­try growth for anoth­er rea­son — to max­i­mize your earn­ing poten­tial. The high­est ROI pro­grams lead to careers whose long-term earn­ings jus­ti­fy the short-term expense of get­ting your degree.

Benefits of Pursuing a Tech Degree Online

Online learn­ing has a host of ben­e­fits for tech stu­dents like you. On the one hand, online learn­ing is extreme­ly flex­i­ble, allow­ing you to get your degree with­out ever step­ping foot on cam­pus. On the oth­er hand, online learn­ing is more acces­si­ble, too. All you need is a lap­top and an inter­net con­nec­tion. You don’t need a car to get to school, mon­ey to pay for gas and park­ing, and so forth.

Oth­er ben­e­fits of online tech pro­grams include the following:

• Low­er costs com­pared to tra­di­tion­al tech degrees (e.g., many online pro­grams charge the same tuition rate whether you’re a res­i­dent or non-res­i­dent student).
• Flex­i­ble class sched­ules, includ­ing asyn­chro­nous learn­ing, which has no set class meet­ing times.
• Abil­i­ty to work and go to school at the same time, there­by reduc­ing how much mon­ey you have to bor­row to pay for your degree.
• A bet­ter work-life bal­ance thanks to a more flex­i­ble school schedule.

Top Tech Fields with High ROI

While many tech jobs pay well, oth­ers pay real­ly well. There are a lot of options here. How­ev­er, among the best high pay­ing tech careers include the following:

Criteria for Evaluating Online Tech Programs

Whether you’re look­ing for AI and machine learn­ing degrees, afford­able online tech pro­grams, a cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree online, or some­thing in between, it’s essen­tial to crit­i­cal­ly eval­u­ate the pro­gram. Use the fol­low­ing tips to ensure you enroll in an appro­pri­ate degree for your needs.

Check for Accreditation

The schools you look at should be region­al­ly accred­it­ed. This type of accred­i­ta­tion is the gold stan­dard, and ensures the school has met sig­nif­i­cant bench­marks to ensure stu­dents like you get a qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion. Fur­ther­more, cred­its you earn from a region­al­ly accred­it­ed insti­tu­tion are very like­ly to trans­fer to anoth­er insti­tu­tion, help­ing pre­serve your progress should you change schools.

Inquire About the Curriculum

When search­ing for accred­it­ed online tech schools, you will be able to explore the cur­ricu­lum on the program’s web­site. Eval­u­ate it for rig­or and com­pre­hen­sive­ness. Also ensure it’s rel­e­vant to cur­rent demands and prac­tices in the tech indus­try. If the pro­gram is accred­it­ed, this should be a giv­en, though.

Evaluate the School’s Reputation

Get­ting a degree from a respect­ed pro­gram offered by a rep­utable insti­tu­tion should also be a pri­or­i­ty. Top-ranked pro­grams typ­i­cal­ly pro­duce high­er achiev­ing stu­dents — and bet­ter pre­pared workers. 

Student Success Rate

The high­est ROI tech degrees pro­duce the most suc­cess­ful grad­u­ates. These pro­grams have high reten­tion and grad­u­a­tion rates. Employ­ment rates among grad­u­ates of high ROI pro­grams are very high, too (e.g., 95 per­cent or more). Like­wise, stu­dents who grad­u­ate from top online tech pro­grams typ­i­cal­ly have among the high­est aver­age start­ing salaries in the indus­try. All this infor­ma­tion should be pro­vid­ed on the program’s web­site. If not, inquire about how to get that data.

Does the Program Have Industry Partnerships?

A final com­po­nent to eval­u­ate in your pro­gram search is its lev­el of indus­try part­ner­ships. You’ll max­i­mize your ROI by enrolling in a degree that has proven part­ner­ships with tech com­pa­nies. What’s more, pro­grams with ties to the indus­try often give you the best expo­sure for poten­tial careers with many intern­ship options and robust career fairs.

Examples of Online Degrees with High ROI

If you search for “online edu­ca­tion ROI tech,” “top online uni­ver­si­ties tech,” or a sim­i­lar term, you’ll find dozens of resources out­lin­ing some of the top degrees in this field. That’s a good thing, as it gives you a great deal of choice when search­ing for the right pro­gram for your needs.

Online tech degrees with high ROI exist at every lev­el of edu­ca­tion, too. Accord­ing to Indeed, some of the best ROI options include the following:

These fig­ures are nation­al aver­age salaries. Your earn­ings might be less or more, depend­ing on var­i­ous fac­tors, includ­ing your per­for­mance in your pro­gram, the type of pro­gram you grad­u­ate from, and the com­pa­ny you work for, to name a few.

Financial Considerations

It goes with­out say­ing that col­lege is expen­sive. You have to pay for tuition and fees, books and sup­plies, and oth­er asso­ci­at­ed expens­es, such as room and board if you live on cam­pus. You might have oth­er costs to pay for as well, depend­ing on your spe­cif­ic situation.

Thank­ful­ly, you can off­set these costs by pur­su­ing tech schol­ar­ships and finan­cial aid. If you’re in high school, speak with your coun­selor about need-based and mer­it-based schol­ar­ships. They can help you gath­er the nec­es­sary mate­ri­als and guide you through the appli­ca­tion process.

If you’re already in col­lege, vis­it your school’s finan­cial aid office. There, you’ll find details about schol­ar­ships, grants, loans, and oth­er forms of aid that can help min­i­mize the out-of-pock­et expense for your degree.

Remem­ber, the more you can reduce the expens­es relat­ed to your degree, the high­er the ROI. And since tech careers typ­i­cal­ly pay very well, you have an excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ty to real­ize a very high ROI for your education.

Career Paths and Earnings Potentials

As not­ed ear­li­er, you can pur­sue tech degrees at all lev­els with excel­lent ROI. Those careers aren’t just advan­ta­geous from an ROI stand­point, how­ev­er. Online degree employ­ment rates for tech careers are often very high, as high­light­ed in the table below:

*As esti­mat­ed by the BLS.

As a whole, these careers rep­re­sent an aver­age annu­al salary of $104,420, so not only can you expect excel­lent job prospects, but you can also expect an excel­lent salary.