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Best Online Art History Degrees (2026)
Updated September 5, 2026BLS dataCollege ScorecardOn this page
Key takeaway: Art history is the study of objects and buildings in their historical context: who made them, for whom, out of what, and what they meant to the people who first saw them. It is a research and writing discipline, not a studio discipline – you analyze work rather than produce it. The bachelor’s is almost always a BA. The graduate degrees split: an MA is the working credential for many museum, gallery, and archive jobs, and a PhD is the usual expectation for curatorial posts at large art museums and for college teaching. Reading knowledge of a second language is a common graduate requirement. There is no programmatic accreditor for art history, so institutional accreditation is the check that matters. In IPEDS 2024, 339 institutions reported bachelor’s-or-higher completions in art history, and 253 of them reported offering distance-education programs (IPEDS 2024). Compare accredited programs below.
Most of the coursework is looking, reading, and writing: period and regional surveys, methods and historiography, and seminars that end in a research paper built from primary sources. Around that core, programs add museum studies, provenance research, conservation basics, and digital art history. Accredited online programs award the same degree titles as campus programs; browse the best accredited online colleges to compare schools that offer them. To find programs near you, see art history programs by state.
Schools Offering Art History Programs
These accredited schools offer online programs. Request information to compare programs, formats, and start dates.
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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.
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BOC
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Source:Accreditor: New England Commission on Higher Education · IPEDS · College Scorecard
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Careers and Wages for Art History Graduates
Art history graduates work in museums, archives, galleries, auction houses, libraries, publishing, arts administration, and a wide band of writing and communications jobs. The occupations below are the ones the degree is most often associated with. Median annual wages come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program.
Median annual wage for the highest-paying art history careers. Source: BLS OEWS. Chart: Best Online College.View the data behind this chart
Highest-paying art history careers. Source: BLS OEWS (May 2025 release)
Occupation
Median annual wage
Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
$78,760
Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary
$78,620
Writers and Authors
$76,910
Archivists
$64,550
Curators
$63,420
Graphic Designers
$62,960
Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators
$55,490
Museum Technicians and Conservators
$51,440
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Projected job growth (2024-2034) for art history careers. Source: BLS Employment Projections. Chart: Best Online College.View the data behind this chart
Fastest-growing art history careers. Source: BLS Employment Projections (2024-2034)
Occupation
Projected job growth (2024-2034)
Curators
7.0%
Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
6.7%
Museum Technicians and Conservators
5.4%
Archivists
3.8%
Writers and Authors
3.6%
Graphic Designers
2.1%
Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, Postsecondary
1.7%
Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators
-1.2%
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CuratorsSOC 25-4012
$63,420Median annual pay
Median hourly$30.49
Mean annual$71,560
Employment (US)12,150
Pay range (25-75%)$48,870 - $83,080
ArchivistsSOC 25-4011
$64,550Median annual pay
Median hourly$31.03
Mean annual$70,640
Employment (US)7,970
Pay range (25-75%)$50,680 - $83,020
Museum Technicians and ConservatorsSOC 25-4013
$51,440Median annual pay
Median hourly$24.73
Mean annual$57,410
Employment (US)12,310
Pay range (25-75%)$41,050 - $67,640
Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and IllustratorsSOC 27-1013
$55,490Median annual pay
Median hourly$26.68
Mean annual$73,150
Employment (US)11,220
Pay range (25-75%)$37,560 - $83,200
Art, Drama, and Music Teachers, PostsecondarySOC 25-1121
$78,620Median annual pay
Mean annual$94,700
Employment (US)93,560
Pay range (25-75%)$61,620 - $103,850
Writers and AuthorsSOC 27-3043
$76,910Median annual pay
Median hourly$36.98
Mean annual$86,090
Employment (US)47,940
Pay range (25-75%)$58,230 - $101,950
Graphic DesignersSOC 27-1024
$62,960Median annual pay
Median hourly$30.27
Mean annual$70,560
Employment (US)197,830
Pay range (25-75%)$49,040 - $81,830
Market Research Analysts and Marketing SpecialistsSOC 13-1161
$78,760Median annual pay
Median hourly$37.87
Mean annual$89,490
Employment (US)899,580
Pay range (25-75%)$58,350 - $108,310
Source: BLS OEWS, May 2025.
Curators is the occupation most people picture. Curators had a median annual wage of $63,420, with the 10th percentile at $40,470 and the 90th at $107,140 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 OEWS). Employment was 15,100 in 2024 and is projected to change 7.0 percent through 2034, with about 1,800 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-2034). That is a small occupation, and the openings figure counts replacements as well as new posts. Archivists, who manage records and collections rather than exhibitions, had a median annual wage of $64,550, with the 10th percentile at $39,970 and the 90th at $110,550 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 OEWS); employment was 9,300 in 2024, with 3.8 percent projected change and 1,100 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-2034). Museum technicians and conservators – the people who mount, house, monitor, and treat objects – had a median annual wage of $51,440, with the 10th percentile at $33,780 and the 90th at $87,530 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 OEWS); employment was 15,700 in 2024, with 5.4 percent projected change and 1,900 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-2034).
Two other destinations are worth naming because they absorb far more graduates than the museum occupations do. Art, drama, and music teachers, postsecondary, had a median annual wage of $78,620 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 OEWS), with 1.7 percent projected change and 9,000 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-2034); these posts generally want a doctorate. Market research analysts and marketing specialists, an occupation many humanities graduates enter on the strength of research and writing rather than the subject matter, had a median annual wage of $78,760 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 OEWS), with 6.7 percent projected change and 87,200 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-2034). Individual outcomes vary by employer, region, specialization, and experience.
Quick Answers
What is an art history degree?
An art history degree trains you to interpret objects – paintings, sculpture, prints, photographs, textiles, architecture, and material culture – in the historical conditions that produced them. You learn to look closely and describe accurately, to place a work in a period and a place, to read the existing academic literature, and to build an argument from primary evidence such as archives, inventories, letters, and the object itself.
Is art history the same as studio art?
No. Studio art and graphic design teach you to make work. Art history teaches you to research and interpret work other people made. Some schools house both in one department and share introductory courses, but the degrees ask for different things: a portfolio and critique on one side, a research paper and a bibliography on the other. If you want to make images, look at studio art or photography instead.
How is art history different from history?
History works mainly from written records and asks what happened and why. Art history works from objects and buildings first, and treats the written record as supporting evidence. The methods overlap heavily – both are archival, both end in a documented argument – and many students take courses in both. Art history adds visual analysis, technical study of materials, and the specialized problems of attribution and provenance.
Do I need a master’s or a PhD?
It depends on the job. Collections assistant, registrar, gallery, auction-house, and arts-administration roles are often reachable with a bachelor’s plus internships. Curatorial work usually is not. Most curator postings ask for a master’s, and at large art museums the PhD is common, sometimes stated outright. College teaching in art history normally requires the doctorate. Be honest with yourself about which tier you are aiming at before you choose a degree level.
Is there a programmatic accreditor for art history?
No. Art history degrees have no recognized programmatic accreditor of their own. The National Association of Schools of Art and Design accredits art and design units, so an art history program housed inside an art school may sit within that scope, but that is not an art history accreditation. The American Alliance of Museums accredits museums, not degree programs. Verify recognized institutional accreditation through the U.S. Department of Education database.
What you’ll study
Art history curricula generally stack in three layers, and the first one is broader than most applicants expect.
The first layer is the survey. Two or three courses walk from the ancient Mediterranean through the medieval and early modern periods into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and increasingly through Asian, Islamic, African, Indigenous American, and global contemporary material as well. Surveys are about coverage and vocabulary: periods, media, terms for describing form, and the ability to date and place an unfamiliar object approximately.
The second layer is methods and historiography. This is the course that turns the subject into a discipline. You read Vasari and Winckelmann, formalism, iconography, social history of art, feminist and postcolonial critique, and the technical and material turn. The point is that the same object supports different arguments depending on the questions asked, and you have to know which conversation you are entering before you write.
The third layer is the seminar and the specialization. You pick a period, region, or medium and write a substantial research paper from primary sources. Expect archival and object-based assignments: read an exhibition catalog critically, reconstruct a provenance, compare two versions of a print, write a condition-report exercise, or build a catalog entry to museum format. At the bachelor’s level, expect roughly 120 credits with the major concentrated in the last two years. At the graduate level, expect seminars, a language examination in many programs, and either a thesis or a qualifying paper.
Around the core, many programs add museum studies: exhibition development, collections management, registration and cataloguing standards, conservation principles, and increasingly digital art history – imaging, databases, and network or spatial analysis of collections. See how online art history degrees work for how object-based study is handled at a distance.
Careers for art history graduates
The work sorts into a few shapes, and they differ sharply in how many positions exist.
Museum and collections work is the destination the degree names. It includes curators who research and build exhibitions, registrars and collections managers who control the records and the movement of objects, and technicians and conservators who house and treat them. These are small occupations with real credential expectations, described in detail on how to become a museum curator.
Archives, libraries, and records work overlaps heavily. Archivists appraise, arrange, describe, and provide access to collections, and many archivists hold a master’s in library and information science rather than art history. If that is the direction you want, compare the library science program guide and how to become a librarian against an art history MA before you commit.
The art market is the third track: galleries, auction houses, appraisal, art advisory, and insurance. It hires on connoisseurship, sales ability, and network as much as on transcript, and entry is often through internships and assistant roles rather than through a posted credential requirement.
The fourth track is everything else the research and writing training reaches: publishing and editorial work, arts administration and development, education and public programs, marketing and communications, and cultural policy. Nothing here requires art history specifically, which is why graduates who want these jobs usually pair the major with internships, a second field, or applied coursework. For the job-by-job walkthrough with wages, see what you can do with an art history degree. For general labor-market context, consult the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook.
How to choose an online art history program
Accreditation – confirm recognized institutional accreditation through the U.S. Department of Education database. There is no programmatic accreditor for art history, so the institutional check is the one that counts.
Coverage and specialization – look past the survey sequence at which periods and regions the faculty actually teach. A department with one modernist and one classicist cannot support a seminar in Islamic architecture no matter what the catalog implies.
Object access – ask how the online program handles working with real objects: local museum partnerships, an internship or practicum you can complete near you, high-resolution image and database licenses, or a short residency.
Degree level against the target job – decide among a bachelor’s, a master’s, and a doctorate based on the tier of role you want, not on how far you would like to go in school.
Language requirement – ask whether the graduate program requires a reading examination and in which languages, since that requirement can add a term or more.
Format and pace – compare accelerated options against standard-pace formats, and understand how the online format works, including any on-campus requirement.
Cost – compare total cost to complete, including fees and any travel, rather than the advertised per-credit rate, and review how to evaluate affordability.
Art history or a related field? Choose art history for research on objects and the visual record. Choose history if written records and broader historical questions are the pull. Choose library science if collections, cataloguing, and access are the work you actually want. Choose graphic design or photography if you want to make images rather than interpret them, and consider liberal arts with an art history concentration if you want the subject inside a broader humanities degree.
