Key takeaway: "Military-friendly" is a marketing phrase everywhere except in federal data, where it is four yes-or-no answers institutions give the U.S. Department of Education. Of the 2,817 institutions in our directory that offer at least one fully online program, 1,013 report all four services (IPEDS IC 2024). This page uses the strictest filter on the site: every school listed below reports credit for military training, a dedicated military point of contact, DoD Voluntary Education Partnership MOU membership, and a recognized student veteran organization. Ordering is by BOC Score inside that group. This site is not affiliated with the Department of Defense or the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Badges are bought. Federal reporting is not. Every year each institution tells the U.S. Department of Education whether it does specific things for servicemembers, veterans, and their families, and those answers become the IPEDS veteran and military services indicators. This hub uses only those answers, plus the distance education flag that confirms a program can be finished entirely online.
Schools to Compare
These accredited institutions report all four military service indicators and at least one program completable entirely online (IPEDS IC 2024). Ranked by BOC Score within that group.
How We Rank Schools
Every school list on this site is ordered by the BOC Score, computed from the most
recent school-level data published by the U.S. Department of Education (College Scorecard and IPEDS).
To qualify, a school must be currently operating and accredited by an agency recognized by the
U.S. Department of Education. Each eligible school is then scored on five measures, percentile-ranked
against schools at the same credential level:
BOCSCORE
- Graduation rate 30%
- Median earnings, 10 years after entry 25%
- Average net price (lower is better) 20%
- Retention rate 15%
- Fully online availability 10%
Schools without enough outcome data appear after ranked schools, without a score.
Advertising never affects these rankings. Read the full methodology.
Graduation rate
89%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$71,588
Avg net price
$6,541/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 97%
- Programs offered: 172
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
94%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$83,648
Avg net price
$13,138/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 98%
- Programs offered: 206
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
91%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$72,200
Avg net price
$11,655/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 97%
- Programs offered: 117
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
86%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$81,054
Avg net price
$14,355/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 95%
- Programs offered: 177
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
85%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$78,466
Avg net price
$14,091/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 95%
- Programs offered: 234
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
87%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$90,768
Avg net price
$16,665/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 95%
- Programs offered: 84
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
85%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$82,860
Avg net price
$15,678/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 96%
- Programs offered: 150
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
94%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$87,555
Avg net price
$18,809/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 98%
- Programs offered: 164
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
88%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$68,726
Avg net price
$13,936/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 94%
- Programs offered: 241
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
71%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$75,971
Avg net price
$3,033/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 89%
- Programs offered: 44
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Graduation rate
89%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$73,792
Avg net price
$17,354/yr
TuitionContact school for pricing
Key stats
- Retention rate: 95%
- Programs offered: 246
Source:IPEDS · College Scorecard
Acceptance rate
75%
Graduation rate
68%
Median earnings, 10 yrs after entry
$71,902
Avg net price
$11,531/yr
TuitionIn‑state$7,780
Out‑of‑state$20,380
Key stats
- Retention rate: 88%
- Programs offered: 64
Source:Accreditor: Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior Colleges and University Commission · IPEDS · College Scorecard
What “military-friendly” means in federal data
A commercial military-friendly list is a paid or survey-based label, and the criteria change with the publisher. The IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey asks something narrower and more useful: does this school actually staff and operate these services? Among the 2,817 online institutions in our directory:
| Service reported to IPEDS (IC 2024) |
Online institutions reporting it |
| Credit for military training |
2,197 |
| Dedicated point of contact for veterans, servicemembers, and families |
2,268 |
| Member of the DoD Voluntary Education Partnership MOU |
1,895 |
| Recognized student veteran organization |
1,291 |
| Credit for training plus a dedicated contact |
2,001 |
| Credit, contact, and DoD MOU membership |
1,646 |
| All four services (this page’s filter) |
1,013 |
Our full directory holds 6,072 institutions, so the online subset is already a filter, and the all-four subset is a filter on top of that. A school reporting all four has built a structure around military students instead of a landing page. A school reporting none of them can still be a fine school; it simply has not told the Department of Education that it staffs this work.
Where each page in this section fits
The lists in this section apply different filters, because the data a separating staff sergeant needs and the data a spouse three moves into a career needs are different subsets of the same survey.
The support-services guide also has state pages for the states with the heaviest military populations: Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Washington.
What each of the four service indicators means
Credit for military training. In the IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey this is a yes-or-no answer to whether the institution awards credit for military training. A yes means the registrar operates a process for reading American Council on Education recommendations off a Joint Services Transcript. The survey does not record how much credit lands on any particular degree, whether that credit fills general education, elective, or major requirements, or whether military credit counts against an institution’s transfer cap. Those terms are set institution by institution and are published in each school’s catalog rather than in federal data. Among the online institutions in our directory, 2,197 report this service.
A dedicated point of contact for veterans, servicemembers, and their families. A yes means the institution names staff or an office whose assigned work is military and veteran students. The survey records the existence of that contact and nothing else: not its staffing level, its hours, whether it is reachable from outside the campus time zone, or whether it certifies enrollment for online programs. 2,268 online institutions report it, making it the most common of the four.
Membership in the DoD Voluntary Education Partnership MOU. DoD MOU member means the institution has signed the Department of Defense Voluntary Education Partnership Memorandum of Understanding, which commits it to academic advising, transparent credit and transfer policies, and limits on aggressive recruiting conduct at schools enrolling servicemembers. It is a written commitment about institutional conduct rather than a measure of academic quality, and it is the one indicator on this list with a federal counterparty. 1,895 online institutions report membership.
A recognized student veteran organization. A yes means the institution formally recognizes a student organization for veterans. At 1,291 online institutions it is the rarest of the four, which is why the all-four filter this page uses is so much narrower than the individual counts suggest.
What the four indicators do not cover. The federal survey does not ask what happens to enrollment, grades, or academic standing when orders interrupt a term, and it does not ask whether re-entry after an interruption is automatic or requires a new application. Institutions publish those policies themselves, and the arrangements that exist across the market include military leave of absence, administrative withdrawal with a readmission guarantee, and course incompletes carried into a later term. The survey is also silent on term structure. Course formats offered by institutions in this group include asynchronous, synchronous, and hybrid delivery, and term lengths in the online market range from full semesters down to eight-week and shorter sessions, with start dates that run anywhere from two a year to monthly.
Outcome data sits in separate fields. The cards above carry graduation rate, retention, and median earnings drawn from federal sources. Those measures are reported independently of the military service indicators, and a school answering yes to all four can still show weak outcomes. Our 2026 ranking of accredited online colleges shows how the BOC Score is built, and our methodology documents the weights behind it.
Browse military-friendly online colleges by state
Each state page ranks the military-friendly online schools based in that state against the same four-service checklist, lists the installations the Census Bureau records there, shows statewide wages for the occupations veterans commonly move into, and links city pages that name the nearby installations with distances, the schools closest to them, and metro-level wages.
Every school on this hub is fully online, so a state page is not a limit on where a student can enroll. The state view matters where in-state tuition rates, a nearby campus for proctored coursework, or an institution a unit already works with are part of the picture.
Quick Answers
What makes an online college military-friendly?
In federal data it is four reported services: credit for military training, a dedicated point of contact for veterans and military families, membership in the DoD Voluntary Education Partnership MOU, and a recognized student veteran organization. 1,013 of the 2,817 online institutions in our directory report all four (IPEDS IC 2024).
Are military-friendly rankings and badges reliable?
They vary by publisher and some are survey-based or paid placements. This section ignores them and uses the institution’s own answers on the IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey, which are public and comparable across every school.
Can I finish a degree online while I am still serving?
Many servicemembers do, usually in asynchronous programs with short terms and frequent start dates. The scheduling details, deployment policies, and re-entry rules are covered in can you go to college while in the military.
How much credit will my military training transfer?
That is decided school by school and degree by degree, based on the American Council on Education recommendations carried on a Joint Services Transcript. The written credit evaluation is issued by the institution’s registrar, and the schools that operate that process are listed on online colleges with credit for military training.
Are the schools on this page accredited?
Every institution in our directory holds accreditation from an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. Careers that require a license depend on programmatic accreditation for the specific program as well, which is a separate designation from institutional accreditation and is granted by field-specific accrediting bodies.
More in this section
Benefit eligibility is determined by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and your service’s education office. Nothing on this page guarantees education benefits, credit transfer, admission, or a particular cost. Confirm every detail with the school’s military or veteran services office before you enroll.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey (IC 2024), veteran and military services indicators (VET2 through VET5) and distance education program flag (DISTPGS); directory counts as of the September 2026 data refresh.
