TechEDge | California Community Colleges

Online Degree Programs In California

Last Updated on Wednesday, 21 March 2012 Written by Sandoval Chagoya Tuesday, 20 March 2012

The California Virtual Campus Distance Education Catalog includes more than 1,100 online degree programs. Evaluating these degree programs by degree type and by the higher education segment that offers each degree yields some interesting results.

All data included below are gathered from information included in the CVC Distance Education Catalog. Information in the catalog is gathered from sources of public information or is self-reported by a representative of the school itself. The catalog is intended as a reference to available programs only. Each individual school is the final authority regarding all facets of the programs listed in the catalog.

The following chart counts all online degree programs listed in the CVC Distance Education Catalog by degree type. Online certificate programs account for just more than half of all 1,012 programs found in the catalog. Associate and masters degree programs make up the majority of the remainder, with online degree minors and doctorates showing as the lowest counts. Programs classified as Other do not fit into the other program classifications.

The chart below divides the 174 schools included in the CVC Distance Education Catalog by the higher education segment they represent. Note that while there are currently only 112 California community colleges, the count of 122 includes colleges AND centers within the California Community Colleges system.

The following chart shows online degree programs from the California Community Colleges system as listed in the CVC Distance Education Catalog. Of the schools listed in the catalog, the CCC system offers the lion's share of associate degrees available in California at 206, with only 10 others offered by independent colleges.

The following chart shows online degree programs offered by the California State University system. The one degree minor is a Minor in Sociology from California State University, Chico. The one doctorate is the Gateway Ph.D. Program offered by the San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science.

The following chart shows online degree programs from the University of California system listed in the CVC Distance Education Catalog. Notably, no fully online associate, bachelors, masters, or doctorate programs are offered.

The following chart shows online degree programs from California's Independent Colleges as listed in the CVC Distance Education Catalog. With a total of only 22 schools—roughly 18 percent of all schools in the catalog—online degree offerings from the Independent Colleges as listed in the catalog eclipse offerings from all other segments except for the California Community Colleges, whose 122 schools and centers offer far more associate degrees (206) and 26 more certificates (173). The Independent Colleges listed in the catalog offer more than four times the number of bachelors degrees and nearly four times as many masters degrees. They also offer 21 of 22 doctorates available online.

Clearly, in time these numbers will fluctuate but overall they present an interesting evaluation of online degree programs available in California. More information about individual schools, their degree programs and more than 19,300 online courses is available from the CVC Distance Education Catalog.<>

Sandoval Chagoya is the TechEDge Managing Editor and a Project Manager for the
California Community Colleges Technology Center and the California Virtual Campus.