This post was written by Hatchet reporter McKinley Kant.
GW’s online graduate degrees in business, education and nursing earned mostly high marks Monday in the first year U.S. News & World Report comprehensively ranked online programs.
The acclaim comes as the University invests heavily in tuition-based online programs, looking to tailor degrees to adult learners juggling jobs.
The Graduate School of Education and Human Development clinched the No. 7 spot in the magazine’s list of top online education programs, bolstered by its successful graduation rates, retention and class size.
Carol Kochhar-Bryant, the school’s senior associate dean, cited the number of faculty who have experience with the design, delivery and evaluation of online learning as a reason for the high ranking of its online program.
“Our online programs are of growing interest to several student populations, and our faculty make a practice of careful evaluation of our distance education programs so that there is continuous improvement and development,” she said.
The news was more mixed for the School of Nursing, which was ranked No. 16 among online nursing programs. Last year, when U.S. News listed online programs by tier, it was one of only four schools to grab a top position.
“We’re very pleased with where we are,” the school’s director of faculty affairs Kimberly Acquaviva said. “Being No. 16 is a stellar ranking – especially considering how many of our key competitors fared.”
She added that the school would need to improve its admissions selectivity to move up.
The online nursing program at area institutions like University of Virginia and Georgetown University were No. 24 and No. 55, respectively. The University of Maryland’s rank was not published because it performed in the bottom 25 percent of overall scores.
But a more crowded field helped lead to a fall to No. 45 for the GW School of Business, which has dropped in several different rankings over the past year.
While the business program was ranked among the top 14 online business programs last year – when U.S. News’ list counted fewer programs – it hit a snag this year mostly because its admissions selectivity and faculty credentials and training were ranked No. 83 and No. 104, respectively.
The school, which offers graduate degrees in project management, tourism and health care administration, started its slate of new online M.B.A. programs this month.
GW also earned the No. 35 position for its online bachelor’s program, which mainly consists of medical degrees.
