Best HBCU Online Master’s Programs

Badge for BEST ONLINE HBCU MASTER'S PROGRAMS

By Dr. James Barham
Reviewed By Jenn Finley

Published: Jan 6, 2022
Updated: Oct 3, 2024

Key Takeaways

25 HBCUs offer over 100 online master’s degree programs.
HBCU online master’s programs extend the greater mission of HBCUs beyond their geographical locations, allowing them to help students anywhere.
HBCUs that offer online learning options provide an excellent education and create a strong sense of belonging for Black and non-minority students.

Table of Contents

Top 10 HBCU Online Master's Programs in 2025

Tuskegee University
Clark Atlanta University
Winston-Salem State University
Hampton University
Texas Southern University
Morgan State University
+1
Florida A&M University
–1
Tennessee State University
Jackson State University
Virginia State University

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.

The top 5 schools in our ranking of the best HBCU online master’s degree programs for 2025 remain unchanged from last year. Morgan State University also moved up 1 position to the number 6 position.

The best Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) offer online degree programs that meet the growing demand for high-quality, fully-accredited online master’s degrees. HBCUs are also finding new and innovative ways to meet the important guiding mission of America’s HBCUs.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities provide an excellent education and create a strong sense of belonging for Black and non-minority students. HBCUs with online degree programs have unique challenges providing on campus academic and cultural benefits to their online students.

Most Historically Black Colleges and Universities where established in the century between the abolition of slavery in 1865 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. The goal of these institutions was to serve predominantly Black students at a time when most Southern colleges refused their admission and many Northern colleges enforced rigid racially-driven admission quotas.

The HBCUs established during this period emerged to advance the educational, professional, and economic interests for Black Americans. HBCUs remain a critical source of education, community, and opportunity for Black students as well as a diverse cross-section of Latino, Asian, and White students.

Today, there is a pressing need for such institutions to provide the same benefits to remote learners in online degree programs. As long as the program is accredited, online learning options are highly respected by employers.

Down from 107, in 2019 The National Center for Education Statistics classified only 100 institutions of higher learning as Historically Black Colleges and Universities across 19 states, Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands, with the majority of HCBUs concentrated in the south.

A growing number of these institutions provides fully online master’s degrees especially in light of the needs revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, considerable investment is being made to help more HBCUs supplement existing traditional instruction with online degree programs. We’ve identified over 100 online master’s degree programs offered by 25 HBCUs.

If you’re interested in attending an HBCU but want an on-campus experience, check out our ranking of the Most Influential HBCUs 2000-2020.

Key Point: The very best HBCU serve as a place for belonging, empowerment, and pride in Black American culture. Our Influence Rankings cast a spotlight on the iconic HBCU that have succeeded in meeting this same level of excellence through their online courses, instructors, and degree programs.

How do we determine the best HBCU online master's programs?

Methodology

The people affiliated with a school are ultimately what make it great. This is why influence gets at the heart of what is truly best in education. At the undergraduate level, the best colleges and universities are those with the highest concentration of influence. Our Concentrated Influence metric adjusts overall influence by size of undergraduate student body, thus allowing smaller schools to compete with larger schools so long as they have proportionately as strong influential faculty and alums.

But at the graduate level, the combined influence score of a college or university’s top academic influencers is the best indicator of academic excellence. Overall influence, and not influence controlled by other variables, thus becomes the best gauge of academic excellence at the graduate level. Where smaller size is an advantage at the undergraduate level (hence Concentrated Influence), graduate studies benefit from a large and vibrant community of graduate students, who promise to become the new generation of academic influencers.

If you are serious about finding the best graduate schools, 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.

The Best HBCU Online Master’s Programs

Online Degree Frequently Asked Questions

If this is your first time taking an online course, the experience may require some adjustment. While you’ll generally learn the same content and take the same exams as your on-campus peers, the medium will likely require you to manage much of this experience independently. You’ll be accountable for your own time management, your ability to harness the technology at your fingertips, and your ability to focus on the lectures, lessons, and assignments at hand. This means you’ll need to create a suitable workspace for yourself, maintain a realistic schedule, and take it upon yourself to build 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 is actually getting there. Taking the commute out of the equation means getting to class should be a lot more manageable. But that’s where it ends. In general, your online courses will incorporate the very same materials, concepts, and testing methods as would a traditional classroom.

And 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 or working with remote learning technology for the first time, online college may even be a little more challenging for you. For a few insights on how to manage this new 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 institutions and less-than-reputable for-profit schools. Accreditation gives you the power to differentiate between the two. Accreditation is a stamp of approval from an independent accrediting agency which indicates that a college or university is meeting standards of quality, credibility, and currency. 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 which is not regionally accredited could limit your opportunities. When seeking an online education, we strongly recommend that students 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.

As long as your online college degree is regionally accredited, 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. In many cases, you will be required to navigate a bureaucracy in which some of your credits will be transferred and others will be jettisoned. However, provided that you have attended an online school with the proper regional accreditation, you should have plenty of options for transfer.

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 resume 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.

While some employers may express concern about making the adjustment from online education to in-person workplace collaboration, many other employers will 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 require some adjustment.

While there is much that can be supplanted or simulated through the online medium, some students may find that there is nothing which can replace the conversation, collaboration, and motivation that occur in an actual classroom setting. As you make the adjustment to online education, one of the biggest challenges you will likely face is overcoming this difference in order to the get the most out of your classes. Fortunately, we’ve got some great Tips for Online Education Beginners.

The advantages of online classes are many. First and foremost, 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 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 HBCU Online Master’s Programs

Key Takeaways

Top 10 HBCU Online Master's Programs in 2025

2025 Ranking Update

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