Southern New Hampshire University accepts up to 90 credits toward a bachelor's, which leaves 30 credits at $354 for a remaining tuition cost of $10,620.
Maryland Global also accepts up to 90 credits, and students who bring in an associate degree often finish with two years left to pay for.
Other accepted credits include military training, professional licences such as CompTIA A+ and prior college coursework. Each credit you bring in removes a full course fee, so a single evaluated licence can be worth several hundred dollars.
Residency can move the price as well. In-state tuition is usually a fraction of the out-of-state rate at public schools, and some states offer reciprocity agreements for students who already live in the state.
Some schools price by degree level instead of by credit. Purdue Global charges $2,500 per term for its cybersecurity bachelor's and $2,833 per term for the master of business administration.
The number of terms matters as much as the credit count. Ask for the term price and the credit price side by side.
Before you enroll, work out how to get a degree in cloud computing to see how the same credits work in a related field, because many schools share the same general education block.
What do the cheapest programs ask you to give up?
Lower tuition usually buys less contact with faculty, longer time to degree and fewer electives, and you should price that trade honestly.
Most low-cost online programs run self-paced with optional start dates.
Fort Hays State expects about 2.5 to 3 years for a computer science degree, while Colorado State Global uses eight-week courses with monthly starts and Johnson & Wales Online charges $495 per credit for a similar three-year path.
Program length matters because every extra term adds fees you would otherwise save. Upper Iowa prices its computer science degree between $360 and $525 per credit depending on the term you start, so the length of the path changes the price of the path itself.
Check four things before enrolling: how many faculty members teach in the program, whether a capstone project is required, whether internships or co-ops are built in, and whether the credits transfer into a master's program later.
Cohort programs work differently. Muhlenberg College runs its information systems and applied AI bachelor's as fifteen five-week courses plus a ten-week capstone, finishing in as little as 22 months.
That path costs $1,875 per accelerated course in 2026-27 and suits students who need a fixed schedule and peers who keep them moving.
How strong is the job market for graduates of these degrees?
Software developer pay reached a median of $135,980 in 2025, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics outlook projects 10 percent growth through 2035.
The May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics counted 1,687,890 software developer jobs at a median of $135,980 and an average of $148,100. The bottom 10 percent earned $82,460 or less and the top 10 percent earned $214,670 or more.
The Occupational Outlook Handbook groups software developers with quality assurance analysts and testers. For that group, 2025 median pay was $134,040 across 1,905,400 jobs, with 185,400 jobs projected to be added from 2025 to 2035 and about 106,100 openings each year.
| Measure | 2025 or 2026 value | Source |
|---|
| Software developer median pay | $135,980 | BLS wage data, May 2025 |
| Average annual wage | $148,100 | BLS wage data, May 2025 |
| Software developer jobs | 1,687,890 | BLS wage data, May 2025 |
| Bottom 10 percent of earners | $82,460 | BLS wage data, May 2025 |
| Top 10 percent of earners | $214,670 | BLS wage data, May 2025 |
| Projected growth to 2035 | 10 percent | BLS employment projections |
Location moves the number more than the degree does. California's median reached $170,910, while Mississippi sat at $86,460.
Programmer occupations, a separate category, carried a median of $98,670 and slower growth, so the specialization you pick inside the degree shapes the salary more than the price you pay.
Adjacent roles move at different speeds. Web developers and digital designers are projected to grow 7 percent over the same decade, and the separate programmer category paid a median of $98,670, which is a useful reality check before you commit.
Choose the role first, then the school that teaches it.
How do online degrees compare with bootcamps and self-taught routes?
The cheapest route to a software engineering job is not always the cheapest route to a software engineering credential.
A degree takes two to four years and gives you a diploma that employers and government agencies recognise without question.
A bootcamp takes weeks or months and gives you projects and coaching, but no degree. Across leading programs, bootcamp graduates land a first job around $85,000 on average, with placement rates between 74 and 94 percent.
The self-taught route costs nothing and teaches the same tools, but the proof moves from a transcript to your portfolio. Our guide to whether coding bootcamps are worth it compares the placement evidence in detail if you are weighing the two routes.
Either way you need the right machine for the coursework and the job search.
Our laptop guide for programming and coding covers what actually matters when you write code all day, and our list of the best online computer science degree programs covers the pricier accredited end of the market.
Employers read the signal differently than you might expect. A degree is checked automatically on some federal and corporate applications, while a portfolio is read by a human.
Many career changers carry both at once and use the degree to pass the filter. That is also why cheap online software engineering degree programs keep working in a market that favours portfolios.
What are the next steps to pick an affordable software engineering degree?
Build a comparison sheet with five columns per school: rate, credit count, fee list, transfer policy and expected length.
Then ask each admissions office for the net price in writing, with your transfer credits already applied. That single email removes the difference between a sticker price and what you will actually pay, and it puts the schools on record.
Finish with the payback calculation. At a $135,980 median, a $27,000 degree looks very different from a $77,000 one, and the faster program leaves you earning sooner.
If a cloud or data focus suits you better than pure software engineering, compare the best online universities built for IT degrees and check how the general education credits overlap.
Know when the cheap option is a mistake. If a program has no faculty, no capstone and no internship, the tuition you saved on paper can cost you a year of searching later.
A pricier program with real projects often pays back faster. Cheap online software engineering degree programs earn their price only when the outcomes hold, and outcomes are the part you cannot see on a tuition page.
Photo: janeb13, Pixabay Content License, via Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/photos/computer-pc-workplace-home-office-1185626/)
Fazlur Rahman
