Best Online Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts and Humanities Degree Programs for 2024

Badge for BEST ONLINE BACHELOR'S IN LIBERAL ARTS & HUMANITIES

By Dr. Brian Carlson and Dr. James Barham

Published: Jul 6, 2021
Updated: Nov 22, 2023

Find top-ranked online bachelor’s in liberal arts and humanities degree programs to prepare students for careers in a variety of fields like marketing, business, public relations, and human resources.

Key Takeaways

The Association of American Colleges and Universities finds that four out of five employers prefer college graduates with an online liberal arts degree and education.
The liberal arts online bachelor’s degree program offers students invaluable workplace skills, including communication, critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving.
Students who major in liberal arts degrees are particularly well-suited for various roles because most companies look for a range of soft skills when hiring entry-level employees.

Top 10 Online Liberal Arts and Humanities Bachelor's Degrees

University of Iowa
Syracuse University
Washington University in St. Louis
University of Kentucky
University of South Carolina
Iowa State University
University of Nebraska at Kearney
Oral Roberts University
University of Memphis
California State University, Northridge

Washington University in St. Louis
University of Iowa
Syracuse University
University of Kentucky
Iowa State University
University of South Carolina
University of Memphis
California State University, Northridge
Portland State University
California State University, Fullerton

University of Southern Mississippi 99%
California State University, Chico 95%
California State University, Fresno 95%
University of Kentucky 95%
University of Memphis 95%
Portland State University 93%
University of North Carolina at Greensboro 92%
California State University, Northridge 91%
Iowa State University 90%
University of Iowa 86%

California State University, Fullerton 24 to 1
California State University, Northridge 24 to 1
California State University, Fresno 21 to 1
Northern Arizona University 20 to 1
California State University, Chico 20 to 1
Iowa State University 18 to 1
University of South Carolina 18 to 1
California Baptist University 18 to 1
Montana State University 18 to 1
University of Kentucky 17 to 1

Washington University in St. Louis $60,590
Syracuse University $60,135
Providence College $57,928
Mercer University $39,708
California Baptist University $38,058
Samford University $36,725
Oral Roberts University $32,640
Faulkner University $23,920
Bob Jones University $21,890
University of South Carolina $12,288

Washington University in St. Louis $59,420
Syracuse University $43,428
Samford University $21,265
Mercer University $15,531
Faulkner University $15,325
Portland State University $15,048
California Baptist University $13,680
University of South Carolina $13,374
University of Kentucky $12,583
Oral Roberts University $11,623

Faulkner University
California Baptist University
Morgan State University
California State University, Chico
Northern Arizona University
University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Montana State University
University of Southern Mississippi
California State University, Fresno
Bob Jones University

California Baptist University
Faulkner University
University of Nebraska at Kearney
Oral Roberts University
California State University, Chico
University of Southern Mississippi
Providence College
Morgan State University
Northern Arizona University
Montana State University

Washington University in St. Louis 12%
Syracuse University 52%
Providence College 53%
University of South Carolina 64%
California State University, Fullerton 67%
Montana State University 73%
Mercer University 75%
Oral Roberts University 78%
California Baptist University 80%
Northern Arizona University 80%

Washington University in St. Louis 7 to 1
Providence College 11 to 1
Bob Jones University 12 to 1
University of Nebraska at Kearney 13 to 1
Mercer University 13 to 1
Faulkner University 13 to 1
Samford University 14 to 1
Syracuse University 15 to 1
University of Southern Mississippi 15 to 1
University of Iowa 16 to 1

University of North Carolina at Greensboro $4,422
Morgan State University $5,477
California State University, Fresno $5,742
California State University, Fullerton $5,742
California State University, Chico $5,742
California State University, Northridge $5,742
Montana State University $5,824
University of Nebraska at Kearney $6,270
University of Memphis $8,352
Portland State University $8,400

University of North Carolina at Greensboro $5,219
Montana State University $5,241
University of Nebraska at Kearney $6,216
California State University, Fresno $7,176
California State University, Fullerton $7,176
California State University, Chico $7,176
California State University, Northridge $7,176
Morgan State University $8,190
University of Southern Mississippi $9,340
University of Memphis $9,378

Table of Contents

Featured Programs

Workplace Skills That Liberal Arts Degrees Graduates Develop

Liberal arts degrees graduates have soft skills that are in demand among employers and institutions. Among the high in-demand skills are the following:

Communication Skills

The key to success in the classroom and the workplace is effective communication. In colleges that offer online liberal arts degree programs, you will be tasked with writing essays and reports throughout your academic career. You can use these skills everywhere, from job applications to sending carefully crafted emails.

Leadership

Leadership isn’t always something people are born with, but it is something that liberal arts students can learn over time! The interdisciplinary liberal arts degree and humanities bachelor’s coursework prepare students for roles in the workplace that put their leadership skills to use.

Teamwork

Teamwork is a necessary skill for most jobs today. Working as a team is an important skill in any workplace, professional or otherwise. A patient, understanding, and helpful attitude that students gain from a liberal arts degree program can go a long way, whether you’re a student on campus or a professional in a working environment.

Benefits of Earning an Online Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts and Humanities

As soon as you enroll in an online liberal arts degree program, these benefits await you:

Develop Social Responsibility

The online liberal arts degree will aid in developing your sense of social responsibility, as well as your intellectual and practical skills. You become more aware of the current situation and needs of societies. You will also gain real-life skills and knowledge.

Ensure Job Satisfaction

Most students who study liberal arts and humanities online are not motivated by money or fame to pursue these degrees. Students in these majors tend to be truly passionate about what they study. Genuinely passionate and inspired workers are more productive, successful, and satisfied. If you want to be excited about school and work, choosing an online liberal arts degree can be one concrete step.

Prepare for Many Types of Careers

It is commonly argued that liberal arts and humanities online programs don’t prepare students for the job market, unlike STEM or more challenging degrees. However, it is important to remember that liberal arts majors are multidisciplinary. The general skills you can gain can be applied to any work or field you’ll land upon graduation.

Frequently Asked Questions About Liberal Arts and Humanities Degrees

Earning a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and humanities gives you the chance to explore a wide range of subject areas while building a well-rounded set of skills and knowledge.

This degree typically consists of about 120 credits and can be completed either online or on campus. Students typically earn their degree in about four years, during which they’ll explore topics like literature, philosophy, music, and history.

It is important to note that it is possible for liberal arts students to earn an associate degree and then proceed on to earn a bachelor’s through an undergraduate degree. This path provides a great opportunity to lower the cost of attending college.

Although this is designed to be a broad degree, students may have the option to choose a concentration, like global and multicultural issues, drama, or foreign language, allowing them to better align their education with their unique interests and career goals.

This degree prepares graduates for careers in a variety of fields like marketing, business, public relations, and human resources.

Learn more about how to major in history.

How do we determine the best online liberal arts and humanities bachelor's 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.

Best Online Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts and Humanities Degree Programs

Online Liberal Arts 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.

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Best Online Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts and Humanities Degree Programs for 2024

Key Takeaways

Top 10 Online Liberal Arts and Humanities Bachelor's Degrees

Featured Programs

Workplace Skills That Liberal Arts Degrees Graduates Develop

Communication Skills

Leadership

Teamwork

Benefits of Earning an Online Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts and Humanities

Develop Social Responsibility

Ensure Job Satisfaction

Prepare for Many Types of Careers

Frequently Asked Questions About Liberal Arts and Humanities Degrees

Why get a bachelor’s in liberal arts and humanities?

How long does it take to get a bachelor’s in liberal arts and humanities?

Are there different areas of concentration in liberal arts and humanities?

What can you do with a bachelor’s in liberal arts and humanities?

Best Online Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts and Humanities Degree Programs

Career Outlook for degree at University of Iowa

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for degree at Syracuse University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Washington University in St. Louis

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for degree at University of Kentucky

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at University of South Carolina

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Iowa State University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at University of Nebraska at Kearney

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Oral Roberts University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at University of Memphis

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at California State University, Northridge

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Mercer University

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for degree at Providence College

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Portland State University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Samford University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at California State University, Fullerton

Online Degrees

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for degree at California State University, Fresno

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at University of Southern Mississippi

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Montana State University

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for degree at University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Northern Arizona University

Online Degrees

Concentrations

Career Outlook for degree at California State University, Chico

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Morgan State University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at California Baptist University

Online Degrees

Career Outlook for degree at Faulkner University

Online Degrees

Online Liberal Arts 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?+