Best Online Certificate in Liberal Arts and Humanities Ranked for Students 2025

Badge for BEST ONLINE CERTIFICATE IN LIBERAL ARTS-&-HUMANITIES

Find top-ranked online certificates in liberal arts and humanities degree programs to help students pursue a deep level of study in a specific content area without the long-term commitment of a bachelor’s or master’s degree.

Key Takeaways

  • Online certificates in liberal arts and humanities allow students to learn new disciplines right from the comfort of their homes.
  • Liberal arts students can go on to pursue a full undergraduate degree, provided the certificate is from a fully accredited institution.
  • Liberal arts programs, as well as the humanities, are very broad, but students can choose which field to pursue and which certificate to secure, ranging from psychology to communications, graphic design to political science.

2025 Ranking Update

Our Influence Ranking Engine™ leverages machine learning to track the real-world influence of colleges and universities over time. Below you’ll see which schools gained or lost ground for the 2025 school year.

In 2025, the top ten schools in our ranking of the best online liberal arts and humanities certificates saw a considerable amount of movement. Tompkins Cortland Community College gained the most ranking positions as the college developed new features in its online Liberal Arts and Humanities programs that are particularly appealing to certificate students. TC3′s flexible online format allows students to complete programs like the Liberal Arts: General Studies and Humanities degrees almost entirely online, providing options for both local and distant learners. These programs emphasize foundational skills in critical thinking, cultural awareness, and effective communication, which are essential for diverse careers or further academic pursuits.

Additionally, TC3 has enhanced its online learning experience with strong faculty support, frequent academic advising, and accessible career services, ensuring online students have comprehensive support throughout their studies. For students interested in creative and digital fields, TC3 offers specialized programs in areas like New Media and Graphic Design, which integrate liberal arts foundations with technical skills relevant to digital and media careers. This approach to combining core liberal arts competencies with practical, career-focused coursework makes TC3’s online offerings attractive to students seeking flexibility and industry-relevant skills in the humanities field.

Featured Programs

Best Online Certificate in Liberal Arts and Humanities Degree Programs

  1. Other Rankings

    Tuition + fees

    $17K

    Acceptance

    64%

    Graduation

    83%

    Student body

    37K

    Median SAT/ACT

    1370/31

    Career Outlook for degree at University of Massachusetts Amherst

    Cost of Degree: $17,357
    Expenses: $17,309
    Starting Salary: $57,700
    Cost Recoup Time: 7 years
    Paid back at 15% of annual salary

    Online Degrees

    Undergraduate Certificate in Medical Humanities
    • Required Credits: 12
    • Completion time: None Reported
    • Format: Online
  2. #2

    Texas Tech University

    Lubbock , TX
    Other Rankings

    Tuition + fees

    $12K

    Acceptance

    67%

    Graduation

    64%

    Student body

    44K

    Median SAT/ACT

    1185/25

    Career Outlook for degree at Texas Tech University

    Cost of Degree: $11,852
    Expenses: $16,170
    Starting Salary: $61,600
    Cost Recoup Time: 6 years
    Paid back at 15% of annual salary

    Online Degrees

    Certificate in Book History and Digital Humanities
    • Required Credits: 15
    • Completion time: 1 year or less
    • Format: Online
  3. Tuition + fees

    $5K

    Acceptance

    70%

    Graduation

    39%

    Student body

    22K

    Median SAT/ACT

    1080/21

    Career Outlook for degree at University of North Georgia

    Cost of Degree: $5,211
    Expenses: $17,450
    Starting Salary: $46,200
    Cost Recoup Time: 6 years
    Paid back at 15% of annual salary

    Online Degrees

    Certificate in Humanities

    Concentrations

    • Diversity Program
    • Required Credits: 10
    • Completion time: 9-12 months
    • Format: Online
  4. Tuition + fees

    $7K

    Graduation

    23%

    Student body

    8K

    Career Outlook for degree at Tompkins Cortland Community College

    Cost of Degree: $6,946
    Expenses: $16,467
    Starting Salary: $34,600
    Cost Recoup Time: 8 years
    Paid back at 15% of annual salary

    Online Degrees

    Certificate in Liberal Arts and Sciences: General Studies
    • Required Credits: 30
    • Completion time: 1 year or less
    • Format: Online
  5. #7

    Toccoa Falls College

    Toccoa Falls , GA
    Other Rankings

    Tuition + fees

    $22K

    Acceptance

    68%

    Graduation

    46%

    Student body

    2K

    Median SAT/ACT

    1115/21

    Career Outlook for degree at Toccoa Falls College

    Cost of Degree: $23,250
    Expenses: $14,570
    Starting Salary: $32,200
    Cost Recoup Time: 11 years
    Paid back at 15% of annual salary

    Online Degrees

    Certificate in Humanities

    Concentrations

    • Cross-Cultural Studies
    • Required Credits: 18
    • Completion time: 9 months
    • Format: Online
  6. Tuition + fees

    $6K

    Graduation

    27%

    Student body

    4K

    Career Outlook for degree at Mount Wachusett Community College

    Cost of Degree: $6,000
    Starting Salary: $36,400

    Online Degrees

    LAS in Liberal Arts and Sciences
    • Required Credits: 61-63
    • Completion time: 2 years
    • Format: Online
  7. #11

    Union College

    Cranford , NJ

    Tuition + fees

    $11K

    Graduation

    35%

    Student body

    11K

    Career Outlook for degree at Union College

    Cost of Degree: $9,500
    Starting Salary: $37,100

    Online Degrees

    Undergraduate Certificate in Liberal Studies
    • Required Credits: 30-31
    • Completion time: None Reported
    • Format: Online

With further schooling, almost all liberal arts degrees can lead to lucrative careers. This allows graduates (with the right qualifications) to share their passion with others.

Certificates and degrees in liberal arts also lend themselves well to future studies and research. Many liberal arts majors are also keen on giving back and connecting with people, eventually leading to careers in public service, politics, and other helping professions.

Certificate in Liberal Arts and Humanities: Skills Gained and Learned

Arts and humanities certificate and degree holders gain critical skills, characteristics, and qualities before working. People with this degree are expected to communicate effectively, clearly, and professionally.

Thus, communication skills are the most imperative, followed by critical thinking. Their employers highly regard these skills, as they are valuable in dealing with daily issues as well as in planning for the future.

Here are some critical skills students will learn from a humanities or liberal arts certificate.

Communication Skills

These skills are needed in any workplace. Your ability to communicate your thoughts through effective and concise writing is important to communicate with your superiors and the masses. Liberal arts and humanities degree programs are designed to teach students these critical communication skills.

Throughout the public speaking and communication courses, students will learn how to break down their insights and arguments into easy and more digestible chunks that can be efficiently shared at any level.

Analytic and Critical Thinking Skills

When studying liberal arts and humanities online courses, students learn essential analytical and critical thinking skills. Learning to think and analyze critically about any problem makes it easier for you to understand incoherent issues. Not only will you understand the problem easily, but you will be able to develop a solution as well.

Research Skills

Any concentration within liberal arts can significantly help develop your research skills. This is one of the most critical parts of the humanities degree, and nearly every major will need at least one or two courses that focus on research.

These skills are what many employers want, especially because this is a skill that is hard to teach. Knowing how to use primary sources to develop relevant research questions and locate the information quickly is valuable in every career.

Liberal Arts and Humanities: Careers In Entertainment

One of the most coveted careers in the US is working in the entertainment industry. Many people of working in this industry to meet celebrities and travel globally. Career opportunities in the entertainment industry include:

  • Movie Producer/Director
  • Cinematographer
  • Writer
  • Actor/Actress
  • Musician
  • Radio Broadcaster
  • Event Planner
  • Musician

Liberal Arts and Humanities: Careers In Creative and Design

If you have an artistic eye and an amazing sense of style, you are a perfect fit for a career in creative design. Careers in creative and design for those who have a certificate or degree in liberal arts and humanities include:

  • Architect
  • Graphic Designer
  • Interior Designer
  • Fashion Designer
  • Photographer
  • Art Director

Other Careers in Arts and Humanities

Other career paths when you earn a certificate in liberal arts and humanities include:

  • Historian
  • Journalist
  • Minister
  • Editor
  • Archivist, Curator, Museum Technician
  • Public Relation Specialist

Frequently Asked Questions About Liberal Arts and Humanities Certificates

Certificates in Liberal Arts and Humanities offer students the opportunity to pursue a deep level of study in a specific content area without the long-term commitment of a bachelor’s or master’s degree.

Certificates can be especialy valuable for teachers seeking to earn continuing education credit or branch into another field of study.

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Students can choose to pursue a certificate from a wide array of disciplines including graphic design, psychology, communications, political science, and more.

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Most programs can be completed in as little as two semesters and can require up to four courses.

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Online certificates offer students the chance to explore new disciplines from the comfort of their homes. And provided that your certificate is granted by a fully accredited institution, it may be possible to count the credits you earn in this program toward a full undergraduate degree in your area of study.

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Learn more about how to major in history.

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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.

Resources for Online College-Bound Students

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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