Candidate Selection

Employers See Online Degrees as Comparable to In-person Degrees

January 30, 2024 | By Kevin Gray

Candidate Selection
A young student pursues an online degree.

TAGS: compensation, nace insights, surveys, trends and predictions,

For the first time in its research, NACE asked employers a series of questions about online degrees. The findings are great news in terms of equity and access to education.

NACE’s Job Outlook 2024 survey found that among employers that capture their new hires’ degree modality, 87.4% hired new college graduates with an online degree.

Moreover, there is no difference in starting salary as 100% of these employers reported that they pay new hires who earned online degrees the same as those with in-person degrees.

Data for the Job Outlook 2024 survey were collected from August 2, 2023, through September 18, 2023. Of the 255 total respondents, 180 were NACE employer members, representing 20.3% of eligible member respondents. The Job Outlook 2024 survey was also distributed to nonmember companies, from which an additional 75 responses were received. NACE members can access the Job Outlook 2024 report in MyNACE.

NACE Dashboard: Access and Analyze the NACE 2024 Job Outlook Survey Data

In addition to having access to the Job Outlook 2024 report, NACE members also receive access to and can analyze the full set of data from the Job Outlook 2024 survey through the report’s dashboard in MyNACE. This is an invaluable way for your team to gain insight into trends and issues, and enhance your ability to develop solutions and advocate for and market your department. For directions and tips on how to use a NACE research report dashboard, please see this YouTube video.

blank default headshot of a user Kevin Gray is an associate editor at NACE. He can be reached at kgray@naceweb.org.

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