Best Online Associate in Business Administration

Badge for BEST ONLINE ASSOCIATE'S IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Published: Jun 23, 2021
Updated: Nov 22, 2023

Find top-ranked online associate in business administration degree programs to prepare students to compete for jobs in fields like sales, human resources, medical and health services, and fundraising.

Top 10 Online Associate in Business Administration Degrees

University of Cincinnati
Hampton University
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Southern New Hampshire University
Fisk University
Andrews University
Baker University
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Liberty University
National University

University of Cincinnati
Fisk University
Thomas Jefferson University
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Hampton University
Liberty University
Andrews University
Campbell University
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Southern New Hampshire University

New England College 100%
Liberty University 99%
Davenport University 99%
Keiser University 97%
Southern New Hampshire University 96%
Franklin Pierce University 93%
Baker University 92%
Andrews University 91%
Thomas Jefferson University 89%
Campbell University 89%

Blinn College 35 to 1
Southern New Hampshire University 22 to 1
City College of San Francisco 20 to 1
University of Cincinnati 18 to 1
Liberty University 18 to 1
Grand Rapids Community College 18 to 1
University of Massachusetts Lowell 17 to 1
Murray State University 16 to 1
Hawaii Pacific University 16 to 1
Davenport University 16 to 1

Thomas Jefferson University $44,350
Franklin Pierce University $43,155
New England College $41,518
Campbell University $39,230
Upper Iowa University $33,639
Andrews University $32,734
Baker University $32,320
Hawaii Pacific University $31,940
Hampton University $29,162
Fisk University $23,578

Franklin Pierce University $37,200
Keiser University $30,032
Andrews University $26,580
Thomas Jefferson University $22,509
Fisk University $21,600
Hawaii Pacific University $20,306
Southern New Hampshire University $18,900
Upper Iowa University $18,870
Davenport University $17,262
National University $15,912

City College of San Francisco
Blinn College
Davenport University
Grand Rapids Community College
Hawaii Pacific University
Murray State University
Franklin Pierce University
Keiser University
New England College
Idaho State University

Grand Rapids Community College
Davenport University
Blinn College
Franklin Pierce University
Keiser University
New England College
Upper Iowa University
National University
Hawaii Pacific University
Idaho State University

Upper Iowa University 54%
Fisk University 71%
Hampton University 74%
Murray State University 84%
University of Massachusetts Lowell 86%
University of Cincinnati 86%
Hawaii Pacific University 87%
Campbell University 89%
Thomas Jefferson University 89%
Andrews University 91%

New England College 7 to 1
Andrews University 10 to 1
University of Alaska Fairbanks 11 to 1
Franklin Pierce University 12 to 1
Fisk University 12 to 1
Campbell University 13 to 1
Thomas Jefferson University 13 to 1
Idaho State University 13 to 1
Baker University 13 to 1
Hampton University 13 to 1

Blinn College $3,600
Idaho State University $5,928
Grand Rapids Community College $7,470
University of Alaska Fairbanks $7,659
Murray State University $8,196
University of Cincinnati $10,656
National University $13,320
Southern New Hampshire University $15,380
University of Massachusetts Lowell $15,462
Davenport University $22,244

Liberty University $7,893
Idaho State University $8,601
Murray State University $9,144
Baker University $11,466
University of Alaska Fairbanks $11,535
Hampton University $13,099
University of Cincinnati $13,224
New England College $13,678
Campbell University $14,417
University of Massachusetts Lowell $14,956

Key Takeaways

The associate degree in business administration is an affordable way to get started on your college education. The typical associate degree will take about two years to complete.

Many community colleges and two-year schools offer both traditional and online degree programs for students pursuing their associate degree in business administration.

Earning an online associate degree in business administration can prepare you for a variety of entry level jobs in your field. Many students also continue into a bachelor’s degree program in business administration or a related area.

Table of Contents

Featured Programs

Frequently Asked Questions About Business Administration Degrees

Why get an associate in business administration?

While many associate degrees are used as a stepping stone to higher degrees, an associate degree in business administration, along with a few years of work experience, can help students not only enter the workforce, but quickly advance to leadership positions in their field as well.

The online associate degree is a great way to receive an excellent business education and develop critical business skills for entry level jobs in areas like human resource management, small business management, and even financial and managerial accounting. It’s also worth noting that most students pursuing accredited online associate degree programs will be eligible for federal financial aid.

How long does it take to get an associate in business administration?

Most associate business administration programs require the completion of 60 credits. Most students can complete the business administration degree program in about two years. Many business schools will provide access to both brick-and-mortar and online associate degree programs.

What will I learn while getting an associate in business administration?

Students pursuing completing the business administration program will typically take general education courses alongside core business courses in areas like business law, human resource management, managerial accounting, management principles and more. Additional topics may include marketing strategies, international business, business writing, financial accounting, and the principles of management. Students earning the associate’s degree will typically also learn the kinds of organizational leadership, decision making, and critical thinking skills required for a successful business career.

What can I do with an associate in business administration?

Students who earn an online associate degree in business administration can compete for entry level jobs in fields like sales, human resources management, medical and health services, and fundraising. Many leadership roles in business will be reserved for those who have earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration or in related areas such as business management programs. The online associate degree can be an affordable and accessible starting point on your way to a bachelor’s degree at one of the nation’s top business schools.

Learn more about how to major in business.

How do we determine the best online business administration associate degree programs?

Methodology

Pursuing your degree online doesn’t mean you need to settle for an inferior school. Today, most universities and colleges offer online degrees, and many respected schools are seeing significant growth in their numbers of online students.

The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why influence — i.e., the academic impact of faculty and alumni associated with a school — gets at the heart of what is truly best in education. The combined influence score of a college or university’s top academic influencers is the best indicator of academic excellence. For our online degree rankings, we focus on the academic influence of faculty and alumni in the specific disciplines we’re ranking.

If you are serious about finding the best online colleges, you should be asking where the most influential professors are teaching, and whether their graduates themselves are advancing the school’s reputation for academic excellence. Most ranking sites rely on an opaque combination of reputation surveys and arbitrary performance metrics. Influence, as measured by our InfluenceRanking engine, provides a ranking that is free from bias, insulated from manipulation, and reflective of real-world educational outcomes.

An associate degree is a great way for many to start their educational journey, but you may want to also consider an online bachelor’s in business administration.

Best Online Associate in Business Administration Degree Programs

Career Outlook for Students with Business Administration Degree

Go to Degree Finder tool

Business Administration And Management

Degree Level: Associate's

Location: The U.S. (Private Schools)
Avg. Cost of Degree*: $3,672
Avg. Expenses*: $13,672
Avg. Starting Salary*: $32,283
Avg. Salary after 4 Years*: $39,939
Avg. Cost Recoup Time**: 6 years
Job Growth: 4.86%
Number of Jobs: 11,888,900
* denotes ‘annually’
** denotes ‘at 15% of annual salary’

Career Salaries

Career	Job Growth	Avg. Salary
Chief Executives	-8.21%	$161,191
Computer and Information Systems Managers	15.41%	$134,192
Compensation and Benefits Managers	1.71%	$124,492
Purchasing Managers	4.39%	$118,521
Sales Managers	4.06%	$117,002
Human Resources Managers	5.22%	$115,604
Training and Development Managers	6.54%	$111,455
Industrial Production Managers	1.62%	$106,425
Managers, All Other	3.35%	$106,040
Fundraising Managers	5.04%	$103,968

Average Career Salaries

Bottom 10%	Median	Top 10%
$55,563	$92,094	$148,349

Promising Job Markets

State	Cost of Living	Avg. Salary
#2 New York	5% higher than average	$116,372
#3 Virginia	5% higher than average	$104,589
#4 Michigan	15% higher than average	$90,047
#5 Georgia	13% higher than average	$90,306
#6 Illinois	7% higher than average	$96,596
#7 Delaware	2% higher than average	$106,159
#8 Ohio	14% higher than average	$88,985
#9 New Jersey	13% higher than average	$116,786
#10 Alabama	13% higher than average	$89,100
#11 Missouri	16% higher than average	$86,291
#12 Texas	10% higher than average	$91,909
#13 Colorado	3% higher than average	$105,194
#14 Tennessee	14% higher than average	$86,864
#15 Minnesota	4% higher than average	$95,799
#16 Wisconsin	7% higher than average	$92,681
#17 Washington	7% higher than average	$105,360
#18 North Carolina	11% higher than average	$87,235
#19 Kansas	9% higher than average	$88,261
#20 Kentucky	14% higher than average	$82,807
#21 Indiana	11% higher than average	$85,766
#22 Pennsylvania	5% higher than average	$90,464
#23 South Carolina	8% higher than average	$87,188
#24 Louisiana	9% higher than average	$85,590
#25 Utah	4% higher than average	$90,368
#26 Oklahoma	13% higher than average	$81,069
#27 West Virginia	11% higher than average	$82,432
#28 Florida	6% higher than average	$87,100
#29 Nebraska	6% higher than average	$86,635
#30 Arizona	5% higher than average	$87,855
#31 New Mexico	7% higher than average	$84,955
#32 Arkansas	16% higher than average	$76,800
#33 Iowa	9% higher than average	$82,805
#34 South Dakota	7% higher than average	$84,133
#35 Rhode Island	20% higher than average	$108,149
#36 Connecticut	18% higher than average	$105,095
#37 Mississippi	18% higher than average	$72,688
#38 New Hampshire	13% higher than average	$98,866
#39 Maryland	18% higher than average	$102,544
#40 Massachusetts	24% higher than average	$106,805
#41 Wyoming	2% higher than average	$84,203
#42 California	26% higher than average	$107,572
#43 Montana	3% higher than average	$82,439
#44 North Dakota	average	$84,322
#45 Oregon	11% higher than average	$92,032
#46 Idaho	7% higher than average	$76,051
#47 District of Columbia	49% higher than average	$120,672
#48 Maine	9% higher than average	$85,124
#49 Alaska	23% higher than average	$95,250
#50 Vermont	13% higher than average	$87,431
#51 Nevada	5% higher than average	$79,841
#52 Hawaii	40% higher than average	$90,634

Top Industries

Industry	Avg. Salary
Chief Executives	$161,191
Computer and Information Systems Managers	$134,192
Compensation and Benefits Managers	$124,492
Purchasing Managers	$118,521
Sales Managers	$117,002
Human Resources Managers	$115,604
Training and Development Managers	$111,455
Industrial Production Managers	$106,425
Managers, All Other	$106,040
Fundraising Managers	$103,968

Data from The Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Department of Education College Scorecard, The Department of Education NCES, and The Council for Community and Economic Research.

Online Business Programs Looking for You

Online Degree Frequently Asked Questions

If this is your first time taking an online course, the experience may require a time of adjustment. Although you’ll typically learn the same material and take the same exams as your on-campus peers, going online will require greater independence and responsibility than going in person. You’ll be accountable for your own time management, for harnessing the online educational technology that you’ll need to use, and for completing the course requirements, such as listening to lectures, learning lessons, reading texts, and handing in assignments. This means you’ll need to create a suitable workspace for yourself, maintain a realistic schedule, and take the initiative in building relationships with your instructors and classmates. With online college, your goal is to find a balance between independence and engagement.

No. The only part of online education that’s easier than campus-based education is ease of access: all you need is a computer and an internet connection for online education. But even this seeming advantage of online education can be misleading: what’s easier, studying online with your computer and internet connection from your home where you need to cook, clean, pay rent, and maintain a job? Or studying on campus in a dorm where all your living needs are handled by the school, and college staff are there to help you every step of the way?

If you take the commute to campus out of the equation, campus-based education is easier. All the support structures available on campus for students, especially with real people to help you in person, are not there online. The demands on you as an online student will largely be the same as for your campus-based counterpart, but without the same helps.

In general, your online courses will present the same material and test you in the same way as traditional in-person courses. In many cases, you’ll even have the same instructors as your on-campus counterparts. In fact, if you are adjusting to the experience of independent learning with remote educational technology for the first time, online college may be considerably more challenging than campus-based college. For a few insights on how to manage this new online experience, check out our 10 Tips for Adjusting to School Online.

Accreditation is especially important when it comes to online college. This is because the online education landscape is a mix of highly-reputable non-profit institutions on the one end and less-than-reputable for-profit institutions on the other end. Accreditation gives you the power to identify the more reputable actors in online education. Accreditation is a stamp of approval from an independent accrediting agency indicating that a college or university is meeting standards of quality and credibility. School-wide accreditation falls into two major categories: regional and national accreditation. Regional accreditors generally hold jurisdiction only over schools in the states comprising their region, whereas national accreditors hold jurisdiction over schools in all states. Regional accreditation is widely regarded as a more rigorous standard of quality and credibility than national accreditation.

Attending a college or university that is not regionally accredited could limit your opportunities. For students seeking an online education, we strongly recommend that they opt for regionally accredited schools. Regional accreditation ensures eligibility for federal loans and grants, ensures your college credits can be transferred between schools, and ensures that your degree credits can be accepted if you wish to earn an advanced degree. For more on this important topic, check out our What is Accreditation and Why Does It Matter? College & University Accreditation Guide.

As long as your online college degree is regionally accredited (see the previous point), you should have little difficulty transferring most of your credits or credentials to another regionally accredited undergraduate school. Every school carries its own standards and procedures for granting a transfer of credits. In many cases, you will encounter some bureaucratic haggling in which some of your credits will be transferred and others may be refused. However, provided that you have attended an online school with recognized regional accreditation, you should be in good shape in transferring your credits earned online.

In most cases, as long you graduate from a well-regarded, regionally-accredited online college, prospective employers won’t look sideways at your degree. In fact, unless you attend an exclusively online college or university, there will likely be no specific indicator on your degree, transcript, or resumé differentiating your school from its brick-and-mortar counterpart. This means that your employer will likely only differentiate between an online and in-person degree if you mention this distinction.

Some employers may express the concern that because you did your degree online, you may need to transition from an online education experience to in-person workplace experience. But in an age of Covid, that concern seems much diminished. The fact is that much employment these days is remote. And collaboration increasingly happens online over Zoom. Many employers will therefore view your online degree as evidence of valuable 21st century professional skills such as independence, self-motivation, time management, and tech savvy.

If you are a student who thrives on the dynamic energy of in-person discussion, who requires the physical surroundings of a classroom to feel engaged, or who considers the social aspects of education to be of equal importance to the actual content of your courses, online education will be less than ideal for you (though depending on your circumstances, it may also be the only viable option).

While there is much in traditional campus-based education that can be substituted or simulated through the online medium, some students may find that there is nothing that can replace the conversation, collaboration, and motivation that occur in an actual in-person classroom setting. As you transition to online education, one of the biggest challenges you will likely face in getting the most out of your online classes is overcoming this difference between “real reality” and “virtual reality.” Fortunately, we’ve got some great Tips for Online Education Beginners.

The advantages of online classes are many. Above all, online courses give you the freedom and flexibility to attend class from anywhere that works for you, whether you’re at home, in a coffee shop, or in a quiet conference room at work. In many cases, you’ll also enjoy the convenience of asynchronous learning opportunities-educational experiences that you can complete at your own pace and on your own schedule. This may include pre-taped lectures, ongoing chat-board discussions, and 24/7 access to digital materials. And of course, just as there are some learners who prefer the energy of a live classroom, there are those who learn best when working in their own personal space, free from distractions. If this sounds like you, you might find the solitude of online learning to be a major advantage.

Whether you’re just getting started on your college search, you’re looking for survival tips on your way to a bachelor’s degree, or you’re preparing for the transition into grad school, we’ve got guides, how to’s and tons of other valuable resources to keep you moving forward in your educational journey.

Do you have a question about this topic? Ask it here

Best Online Associate in Business Administration

Top 10 Online Associate in Business Administration Degrees

Key Takeaways

Featured Programs

Frequently Asked Questions About Business Administration Degrees

Why get an associate in business administration?

How long does it take to get an associate in business administration?

What will I learn while getting an associate in business administration?

What can I do with an associate in business administration?

Best Online Associate in Business Administration Degree Programs

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at University of Cincinnati

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Hampton University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at University of Massachusetts Lowell

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Southern New Hampshire University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Fisk University

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Andrews University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Baker University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at University of Alaska Fairbanks

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Liberty University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at National University

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Concentrations

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Thomas Jefferson University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Upper Iowa University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Campbell University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Idaho State University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at New England College

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Keiser University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Franklin Pierce University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Murray State University

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Hawaii Pacific University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Grand Rapids Community College

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Davenport University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at Blinn College

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for Business Administration degree at City College of San Francisco

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for Students with Business Administration Degree

Business Administration And Management

Degree Level: Associate's

Career Salaries

Average Career Salaries

Promising Job Markets

Top Industries

Online Business Programs Looking for You

Online Degree Frequently Asked Questions

What can I expect from an online college course?+

Is online college easier than campus-based college?+

Why does accreditation matter in online college?+

Will I be able to transfer my online college degree?+

Will employers respect my online degree?+

What are the disadvantages of online classes?+

What are the advantages of online classes?+

Resources for Online College-Bound Students