In 2014, Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, which is regularly ranked in the top 10 in the United States, started enrolling students in a fully online version of its Master of Science in Computer Science degree—the earliest educational model to combine the inexpensive nature of online education with a degree program from a highly ranked institution. The online degree costs about $7,000, less than one-sixth of the $45,000 that out-of-state students pay to enroll in the same program in person. The classes were designed by faculty to mirror the in-person courses, are graded to the same standards, and lead to the identical degree without any “online” distinction. It is now the nation’s largest master’s-degree program in computer science. Read “An Elite Grad-School Degree Goes Online” to learn more about how the Georgia Tech program meets a need in the higher-education marketplace, or listen to author Joshua Goodman discuss his findings on the Education Exchange podcast.

—Education Next