Old Dominion University named to list of 50 best value online colleges

Norfolk-based Old Dominion University is the only Virginia school that has been named to Value Colleges’ 50 Best Value Online Colleges of 2015.

Value Colleges is an online guide to the best values in college education. ODU was No. 16 on the list. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, whose administrative offices are in Daytona Beach, Fla. took the No. 1 spot.

To compile the list, Value Colleges looked at colleges 20-year net return-on-investment; cost of attendance and national rankings. Information was compiled from PayScale.com, U.S. New & World Report, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), and the schools' own websites. To make the ranking, each school had to be a private or public college in the U.S., regionally accredited and offer at least three online bachelor’s degree programs.

According to Value Colleges’ report, ODU’s online program is one of the largest in the country. Students in the university’s online program account for almost a third of all of its 24,000 students. “With some 70 bachelor’s programs to choose from, Old Dominion probably offers the widest variety of online degrees out there, including many majors not usually accommodated online, such as Civil Engineering, Health and Human Services, or Dental Hygiene,” says the write up on Value Colleges’ website. ODU’s online programs return on investment is $305,000, Value Colleges says.