We’ve all seen the college decision reveals, a dramatic genre of video spurred by the ever-increasing pool of applicants to colleges in the United States. Prospective students and their families huddle around a laptop, reading rejection after rejection from their top choice colleges, until finally: their eyes light up as they read aloud an acceptance letter to Columbia, or Georgetown, or perhaps USC.  Then, the tears and the hugging start rolling in; they’ve secured a coveted spot within some college with enough prestige that the various onlookers of the internet recognize this as an extremely desirable outcome—a miracle— and circulate the moment, from TikTok to Instagram to Facebook ad nauseum. With the number of applications that a student sends out only really limited by their finances, every subsequent application to an elite college is like increasing the number of times that the dice will roll. Thanks to the advent of a standardized ranking system like the one used at U.S. News, colleges from opposite coasts are competing for more or less the same pool of students and how they fare on the national stage (in other words, their numerical ranking) is paramount. Regardless of what program someone gets into or whether they’ll be on campus at all, a degree from a top university that’s proved its worth on a national level seems to be worth its weight in gold.

This preconception of what lofty value one will get out of a degree from an elite school may have a lot to do with its reputation, but there is a real-world differential observed when we take into account the socioeconomic statuses of these accepted students. In other words, if you happen to be outside of the archetype for an elite college student but manage to secure a spot regardless, a degree not only increases the amount of work you’ll get, but the value of that work as well. A landmark study by the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that graduating from selective colleges translated into nearly 50% more income on average for women, 12% more for Hispanic graduates, and 23% more for Black graduates.

With that increased value of postgraduate labor, however, typically comes a higher sticker price on the college: private, selective colleges can be up to three times as much as a garden-variety “non-elite” college, depending on the program. This price, which can amount to several hundreds of thousands after everything is said and done, risks offsetting the benefits of a certain kind of college experience or a purebred-pedigree diploma. Over time, the aggregate cost of these degrees have increased, leading to an observable uptick in student borrowing for most programs, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

Determining whether an online degree from these elite colleges is just as useful as an on-campus equivalent can get tricky. Online-only programs at these colleges tend to be very close in price to an on-campus program, if not the same. Some elite universities have no problem asking for their standard tuition rates: University of Southern California, Columbia University, and Northwestern University have all their online programs billed at the same rate as a regular program. The value of an online degree compared to its in-person equivalent, however, is a little ambiguous; many employers view the ability to get into a selective on-campus program as more indicative of merit, even if the content and curriculum of its less selective, off-campus equivalent is identical. A study by the American Economic Review found that those who listed an online degree on their resume received slightly less callbacks overall than those who didn’t list any higher education at all.

Although some graduates may face the harsh reality that their six-digit diploma didn’t translate directly into a six-digit salary, many students chose online education for the convenience provided; they’re enabled a full-time job or other responsibilities while also attending classes, decreasing the financial load of the college experience.

The University of Southern California, Georgetown University, and Columbia University are all colleges in the top 30 national rankings, according to U.S. News, which also offer robust options for students hoping to attend remotely. Click a college’s landmark library below to take a closer look at what this means for students or faculty.

The common thread running through all of these stories is 2U, one of the largest OPM companies on the market. Designed to build and deliver online programs or degrees at universities willing to accommodate their proprietary infrastructure (or in other words, sticking to 2U’s platforms and course designs,) the co-founders cited an “opportunity” in education as a fundamental reason for why they started the company—at the time of its founding in 2008, very few elite universities offered substantial options for online education.

Within a decade of 2U’s founding the online program manager industry went from a collection of start-ups to a flourishing enterprise, with 22% of all post-graduate degrees offered in the U.S. coming to students completely remotely as of 2014. 

2U was the subject of a 2022 Senate probe following the Wall Street Journal investigation which exposed that the company’s training material explicitly enforced racial profiling and downplayed student outcomes that were falling far short of what was promised by recruiters.

The Department of Education issued further guidance in 2023, calling for all OPM companies that provided recruitment services for their partner colleges (such as 2U) to face further auditing as third-party services, not educational companies. The Department cited the revenue-sharing model as a strong motivator, stating that they “want to ensure that students get value for their money.”

2U did not respond to requests for comment.

From a student perspective, the experience of a degree program from an OPM like 2U varies wildly. While Costa was satisfied with her degree, other online students at different schools within USC felt defrauded— some are even suing the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work for fraud. Thompson took no issue with the course material of his Master of Science at Georgetown, but was pressured into silence about the more negative aspects of his experience by university staff. The vice grip colleges exert over the information surrounding their online programs is at the heart of the issue for Thaddeus, who highlighted the fact that many students were completely in the dark about their prospective online degrees outside of what recruiters were willing to tell them.

In both students’ cases, recruiters encouraged them to enroll and promised that their experience would be a positive one. They were not informed of a third party company’s involvement in their degree.