DCB Recognized as Top Online School in Healthcare Education
DCB earned top honors for distance education as the Most Affordable Online Medical Assistant Program.
“We set out to find schools that are making online education a priority,” said Wes Ricketts, founder of EduMed.org. “Each school in our rankings has a winning combination of flexibility, affordability, academic rigor and student support. This is a tall task in a field that leans on face-to-face interaction and hands-on training.”
DCB’s recognition comes at a time when students across the country are taking more of their courses either fully or partially online. According to data from the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics, enrollment in online courses increased by 93 percent between Fall 2019 and Fall 2020. Nearly two-thirds of college students took at least one online course in 2020.
“COVID-19 forced many schools to rapidly expand their online program catalogs to meet increased student demand,” said Ricketts. “The colleges that offer accredited online courses in the widest variety of disciplines stand to benefit the most from the mass transition to higher education online.”
EduMed.org researched and analyzed more than 7,700 accredited schools using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) and from the schools themselves. The website’s data science team then applied a proprietary algorithm to rank all qualifying schools for each healthcare discipline. Primary data points include:
- Number of online programs in subject area
- Online program tuition and fees
- Access to academic counseling
- Access to career placement services
- Number of online students
- Percentage of students with institutional aid
To be eligible, a school must hold active regional accreditation and have at least one partially online program in the ranking subject. Just eight percent of U.S. postsecondary institutions earned a ranking position.