How to Get a Bachelor’s Degree Fast Online [2024 Guide]
By Joy Miller
Edited by Tania Staley
Updated on September 18, 2024
To earn your bachelor’s degree faster, you can utilize accelerated online programs, transfer credits, degree completion programs, fast-track courses, competency-based education, and flexible online study options to significantly reduce your graduation timeline.
In this guide, we’ve compiled some insider secrets showing you the fastest ways to get a degree online, like getting credit for job training or military experience.
You can even take multiple choice exams to earn college credits (accepted by 2,000+ accredited universities nationwide).
Editorial Listing ShortCode:
With online degrees, you have more options. How fast you get your bachelor’s degree is really up to you (and the college you choose).
Following these tips can help you earn a degree faster:
Completing any of these steps can help you shave off months and possibly years from the time it traditionally takes to complete a bachelor’s degree.
Accelerated degree programs with 8-week online classes can help you finish your degree faster. But first, you need to know which degree you want to get. We’ve compiled information about some of the most popular majors in which accelerated online programs are available.
Jump to the majors that interest you the most by clicking the links below:
Before you decide which degree to pursue, it is helpful to consider your interests, career goals, and skills.
Accounting concentrates on financial bookkeeping for individuals, businesses, freelancers, governments, and other organizations. If you are getting an accounting degree, you can specialize in public accounting, corporate accounting, tax counting, or another area.
This career path prepares you to advise, manage, and consult with businesses and individuals about their financial affairs. If you are interested in topics like fiscal responsibility and operational clarity, a career in accounting could be a good choice.
While earning this degree, you’ll study auditing, business ethics, mathematics, business law, and microeconomics. With this degree, you can pursue a career as a loan officer, budget analyst, personal or business financial advisor, or statistician.
Anthropology is an intellectually exciting field that encompasses studies in history, linguistics, and cultural mores. It emphasizes the importance of fostering a deeper understanding of cultural roots and developing an appreciation and understanding of diversity.
In this day and age, this is fundamental knowledge for anyone who seeks new solutions for creating more egalitarian societies.
You can find numerous job opportunities in academia, government organizations, cultural outreach programs, and international relations with a degree in anthropology.
One of the best things about earning a college degree in business administration is the wide career opportunities you‘ll enjoy. Earning a degree in business administration can allow you to develop foundational career skills, like communication and decision-making.
Career opportunities in business administration are constantly available because people keep opening new businesses.
After getting your business administration degree, you can pursue a career in management or other specialized roles in small or large companies.
Communication is a daily part of life and essential for human societies and relationships to form and develop. Though communication is needed in most aspects of life, true mastery of communication is equally rare and powerful.
A communications program can allow you to become capable of disseminating (explicitly or subtly) large amounts of information to society at large.
In this technical and globalized world, a communications degree can open many opportunities in social media management, design, marketing, public relations, and journalism.
Earning a degree in computer science will teach you how to develop, design, and test computers and software. You can pursue work as a computer technician, program in different computer languages, create video game designs, be an electronic music engineer, or work in numerous other IT fields.
Your computer science coursework will include application programming, information systems management, web development, and network fundamentals.
Because computers are necessary for most career fields, earning your computer science degree will open doors to numerous career opportunities.
In a criminal justice program, you’ll study theoretical legal principles and their effects on society, both when they are respected and not.
The development of legal systems, how these systems impact modern society, and the applications of justice to correct large-scale social ills will also be explored and scrutinized.
A degree in criminal justice can lead to careers in law enforcement or public policy or act as a step toward law school.
Depending on your interests and career goals, you can choose from many different concentrations in education. Think about what age and subjects you’d like to teach to decide the education degree to pursue.
Your area of specialization and the level that you choose to teach will impact where you can work and your earning potential.
With a degree in education, you could get a job as a public school teacher, a librarian, a coach, or in another position teaching others. You’ll take courses on child psychology and development, education technology, teaching and learning theories, and curriculum building.
As it is said, money makes the world go round, and a degree in finance provides an efficient way to access the organizations that move the hidden gears of our society.
In addition to developing a thorough understanding of the financial practices that keep businesses functioning, a degree in finance offers a solid foundation in micro- and macro-economics.
At the bachelor’s level, a degree in finance offers the opportunity to pursue further certifications and licensure as a financial advisor, real estate agent, or stock trader.
A Bachelor of General Studies is often confused with the stereotypical “undecided” or “undeclared” major at many American universities, but the concept of general studies degrees has a long and proud history.
Thanks to its flexibility, completing a program in general studies can help you become a well-rounded, knowledgeable employee with leadership and practical abilities important to numerous career fields.
A college degree in healthcare management can open the door to a reliable and rewarding career path. Coursework for this degree covers anatomy, psychology, and business management and teaches computer skills and strategic thinking.
After finishing your degree, you can get a job in a hospital, doctor’s office, or various laboratories (both public and private sectors). With preparation in finance, human resources, and healthcare administration, you can pursue behind-the-scenes work or play a visible role in healthcare, helping people in need.
Graduating with a human resources degree can allow you to develop a combined graduate knowledge of management tactics, leadership skills, and revenue-oriented organizational awareness. You can also develop a keen eye for talent and a better understanding of people’s motivations.
This combination of psychology, sociology, and business management skills is highly sought-after by employers.
If you are looking for a stable and profitable career, earning a degree in information technology is a good bet. Nowadays, there are many places where IT specialists can earn salaries up to $200,000.
You can work in hospitals, large corporations, or retail as a software developer, network architect, computer programmer, or web developer providing cutting-edge, technological solutions.
If you want a career in law enforcement or criminal justice, a degree in legal studies could be for you. While earning this degree, you’ll study social science, political science, sociology, anthropology, and economics.
After graduating, you can pursue work as a paralegal, legal assistant, court reporter, or legal secretary.
You could also go on to work for a lawyer (or be a lawyer after further education) or work for the court system. If you enjoy law and the criminal justice system, this could be the right degree for you.
The days in which the liberal arts were the core of a gentleman’s education may seem like they have long passed. Nowadays, jobs and positions seem to be more connected to specific specializations.
The value of a well-rounded education, though, has never gone away. Marketing professionals, public organizations, diplomats, and lawyers can all benefit from the solid civil framework provided by the study of liberal arts.
This is an ideal course of study for creative-minded people eager to keep their doors open and with an affinity for several channels of knowledge simultaneously.
Marketing is now more important than ever before. With social media and mobile web opportunities, businesses have more ways to reach their audiences. A college degree in marketing can place you in the right career path for this growing field.
As you study marketing, you’ll learn about sales promotions, product placement strategies, human behavior, and why we buy what we do. Your coursework will also involve business, commerce, and networking studies.
After finishing your degree in marketing, you can pursue a career as an advertising sales agent, insurance sales agent, sales engineer, real estate broker, or social media manager.
This college degree focuses on human behavior, counseling skills, childhood development, family structures, and social constructs.
It can prepare you to work as a behavioral disorder counselor, marriage therapist, probation officer, social worker, or mental health counselor. If you have the emotional awareness and strength, strong mind, and compassion to help and work with people, this can be a very rewarding career path.
As a psychologist, you can help people understand and overcome their anxieties, personal losses, and stress. To become a licensed practitioner, you‘ll need further education, but earning a bachelor‘s in psychology can lay the foundation for a successful career.
Public health specialists are tasked with designing mid- and long-term strategies that will impact the overall health of large populations. Generally, their focus is on a city, region, or country scale.
Public health is one of the most delicate public administration subsets. but its niche specialization should not be seen as a lack of applicability, at least where the job market is concerned.
Healthcare is a rapidly growing field, and all governments rely on experts to help regulate and improve their populations’ health.
At its core, sociology is the study of society and the forces that shape it. While it is a field that doesn’t directly translate into many private-sector jobs, sociologists’ skills and analytical abilities are valuable in the workplace and the business world.
Sociologists can predict emerging trends by studying the in-depth values and forces at work in specific cultures and regions. This knowledge can be used to plan public policies or marketing campaigns.
Credit for prior learning (CPL) goes by many names. Sometimes, you’ll hear students ask if a university offers life experience credit or work experience credit.
Credit-granting policies vary widely by university, but it’s important to point out that accredited universities don’t just hand out college credits in exchange for a copy of your resume. To maintain academic quality and integrity, universities generally follow guidelines outlined by the American Council on Education (ACE).
With this in mind, these are some of the experiences that may qualify:
Even if your experience is not listed here, that doesn’t mean your prior learning isn’t applicable. Contact a college advisor and ask them about their prior learning assessment program to see if you qualify.
Instead of taking the classes, what if you just took a few multiple-choice exams and got credit for them? It sounds like a scam, but this option is completely legit and accepted by over 2,000 accredited universities.
The two most common exam programs that award college credit for passing scores are the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) and Dantes Subject Standardized Test (DSST).
Other Credit by Exam options available are:
Most colleges will accept Credit by Exam to prove your understanding and bypass classes.
Accelerated online classes are another way to complete classes quickly. The time it takes to complete a class will vary by program, but many online programs offer classes that are 8, 6, or even 4 weeks long.
If you can handle the accelerated pace and workload, taking accelerated classes can greatly reduce the time it will take to complete your degree.
As an example of how quickly you can finish college with accelerated online classes, some universities allow you to take up to 3 classes per 8 weeks. Plus, they even have a January intensive 3-week term.
If you have the time (and energy) to maintain this course load, you should be able to complete 16 classes (48 credits) in one year.
Going back to school and getting a bachelor’s degree is a life-changing decision. But it can be done quicker than you might think. Now that you know how to get a bachelor’s degree fast, are you ready to start changing your life?
How fast is fast? Due to university restrictions, the average time it takes to earn a bachelor’s degree at an accelerated pace is 2.5 years.
Regardless of the college you decide to attend, you can use the strategies we listed to graduate college early. Some colleges simply have more generous policies than others.
There are even colleges that make it possible to earn a degree in as little as 18 months to 2 years.
The first step is to pick a college that has generous credit policies for non-traditional credit. Think credit for life experience, credit by exam, credit for military training, and similar policies that can help you speed through your degree.
These are some ways college credits can be earned quickly:
It’s important to research the programs you are considering and see if they offer these opportunities or other ways to accelerate your degree. Some colleges are just better suited for earning a bachelor’s degree fast.
Although each school has its own policies, they typically function in similar ways. The primary difference will be how many college credits you can qualify for. For example, some schools allow only 15 credit hours from the CLEP program. Others may allow up to 30 credit hours.
Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) programs vary widely by school, but most use the American Council on Education (ACE) guidelines to determine if experience or training is worthy of college credit.
Your college choice will ultimately determine how fast you can complete your degree.
The fastest way to get a bachelor’s degree is to:
Utilizing these methods can allow you to earn college credits much more quickly. Also, if you have any previous college credits, you should research your school transfer credit policies to avoid having to retake classes.
Before you get too excited and enroll in an online university, check that it’s the real deal by reviewing its accreditation status. Schools with regional accreditation are respected by employers and other educational institutions. If a school isn’t accredited, there’s a high chance that its programs don’t meet the highest standards.
It’s best to enroll in a university that’s regionally accredited by one of these independent boards:
When you attend an accredited school, you can be sure of receiving a high-quality education. Check the U.S. Department of Education’s database to see how your school ranks.
And, of course, don’t skip looking for all the financial aid opportunities available. You could qualify for:
Start by filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).
Plenty of online bachelor’s programs offer ways to earn your college degree quickly. It’ll take some research to find the best school for you and hard work to finish your degree, but you can do it.
Are you ready to get started? Try our program finder below to start searching for accredited bachelor’s programs today.
Take our quiz and we'll do the homework for you! Compare your school matches and apply to your top choice today.
