Largest Online Universities by Enrollment

Scale is one of the few things about an online university that is both measurable and meaningful. The largest institutions have built their operations around distance students, run the widest program menus, and process transfer credit and enrollment at volumes that make their systems either very good or very visible when they fail. Whether that is what you want is a separate question, but knowing which schools are actually large, as opposed to heavily advertised, is a reasonable place to start.

The table below is computed at build time from the federal data behind this site. It lists institutions where at least half of undergraduates are enrolled exclusively online, ranked by undergraduate enrollment, with the share fully online, published in-state tuition and fees, and average net price for each. No editorial weighting, no paid placement.

The largest primarily online institutions

Editorial comparison, not a sponsored listing; sponsored listings on this site appear in labeled widgets (see our advertising disclosure). CollegeNPC.com is not affiliated with or endorsed by any institution shown. Figures are federal reporting and vary by student, program, and year; confirm current costs with each school.

Enrollment is undergraduate headcount from the College Scorecard. Fully online is the share of undergraduates enrolled exclusively in distance education courses, from IPEDS fall enrollment reporting. Published tuition is in-state annual tuition and fees as reported to IPEDS. Average net price is what students actually paid, as reported to IPEDS. Institutions that did not report a figure show “not reported”; the data note at the end of this page gives survey years.

A few things to know when reading it. Some large institutions report to the federal government under names that differ from their marketing names, or report branch campuses separately, and the table uses the federal names. A handful of institutions on the list have changed ownership or name since the survey year. And the list mixes public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit institutions, which price very differently, as the nonprofit vs for-profit guide shows with sector medians.

What size tells you, and what it does not

Program breadth. Large institutions can sustain programs in fields that small ones cannot, because enough students enroll in each. If you want an uncommon concentration delivered fully online, the largest institutions are the likeliest to have it.

Operational maturity. Institutions with tens of thousands of online students have, out of necessity, built enrollment, advising, and technical support systems designed for distance students. That does not by itself tell you how well those systems work for an individual student. It does mean the systems exist.

Transfer credit infrastructure. Large adult-serving institutions typically maintain extensive course-equivalency databases and articulation agreements, which tends to mean more accepted transfer credit. The transfer credit guide explains why that matters more than tuition differences.

Nothing about price. The table shows it directly: published tuition and net price vary widely among the largest institutions. Scale is not a discount.

Nothing about outcomes. Completion rates, median debt, and median earnings among the institutions in the table span a wide range. Each school’s page on this site shows those figures. Size is a reason to look, not a reason to enroll.

Where the largest institutions sit in the price distribution

The affordable online colleges list ranks accredited primarily online institutions by published tuition, and a few of the largest institutions appear on it. Most do not. The lowest-priced online institutions are disproportionately public community colleges and small mission-driven schools, while the largest are disproportionately private. Across primarily online four-year institutions in the dataset, median published in-state tuition and fees run $7,413 at public institutions, $13,420 at private nonprofits, and $13,920 at private for-profits.

Net price is the better comparison, and it is on every school page. For a large institution with a high published tuition, the average net price and the net price for your income bracket tell you whether the institution discounts from its sticker or not.

How to use this list

1. Verify accreditation for any school you are considering in the Department of Education’s DAPIP database, using the accreditation guide. Every institution in this table is accredited by a recognized agency as a condition of appearing in the dataset, but check anyway.
2. Confirm the specific program you want is delivered fully online.
3. Open the school’s page here and compare net price for your income bracket, completion rate, and median debt against your other candidates.
4. Put two finalists side by side with the comparison tool.

Data on this page: U.S. Department of Education IPEDS published charges (2023-24) and average net price (2022-23), and College Scorecard outcomes, retrieved 2026-08-13. Every figure renders from the site data pipeline; definitions, survey years, and refresh cadence are on the methodology page.