If you want to accelerate or expand your agricultural career opportunities, earning an online master’s degree in agriculture is a sure way to make that happen.
Are you thinking about growing your agricultural career to increase prospects in other job arenas, open the door for higher-level ag positions, or speed up your ability to get promoted in your current position? Enhancing your academic portfolio to include a master’s degree in agriculture could be the ideal way to elevate your career to the next level or even expand your existing opportunities and fast-track your employment dreams.
What Is an Online Master’s Degree in Agriculture?
A master’s degree in agriculture is typically used to provide extended expertise and skilled knowledge in a focused area of the life sciences. Program participants can choose from a variety of concentrations or focuses, including environmental science, animal science, food safety and biosecurity, plant pathology, science and pest management, as well as agricultural engineering. Some programs also offer professional certifications as part of their master’s program. Note that some institutions offer students the ability to take courses in their degree programs for continued education purposes without completing the full master’s program. However, students typically must apply to the whole master’s program to take any of the courses.
How Much Can You Earn With an Online Master’s Degree in Agriculture?
A master’s degree in agriculture creates exposure to even more career opportunities. Work as a food or plant scientist, a plant pathologist, a biosystems or agricultural engineer, or even an animal scientist with your extended education. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics indicates that master’s holding animal scientists earned an annual income of $60,300 in 2019, while food scientists and technologists earned $68,970. Research and development engineers earned about $76,229 annually.
Additional agricultural occupation opportunities can include working for land grant universities, state and local governments, and even corporations focused on scientific research. While a master’s in agriculture creates even more career opportunities, professional degrees, certificates, and doctoral degrees are often encouraged in jobs that require leadership responsibilities and policy-making decisions.
What Is Required For an Online Master’s Degree in Agriculture?
Pursuing an online master’s degree in agriculture is only available after first completing a bachelor’s program from a fully accredited university. Though not required, the degree is encouraged to be in a science-focused field. Admissions applications typically call for a GPA of 3.0 in the undergraduate program. Additional items for the application can vary depending upon the scholastic institution. However, many agricultural master’s programs require official transcripts from the undergraduate degree institution, a resume, and up to three personal recommendations for program admittance consideration.
What Are the Best Online Master’s Degrees in Agriculture?
OSR uses six data points: three school-wide and three program-specific. For school-wide, OSR uses Student Satisfaction, Admission Rates, and the number of programs the school offers online. For program specific, OSR checks the Median Debt of graduates from that program, how many degrees are offered within that program’s umbrella department, and what percentage of students at that school graduated from that department.
The six statistics are displayed by each school. The sliding bar under each statistic represents how that school compares to other US institutions. “Not reported” means a school did not release that information to the US Department of Education. A more detailed description of the OSR process can be found on the methodology page.
