2025 Best Online Civil Engineering Degrees

What Is a Civil Engineering Online Degree?

A bachelor's degree in civil engineering aims to equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to become civil engineers and design critical infrastructure. Program faculty offer classes on physics, materials science, calculus, and structural mechanics to ensure that students understand how to create safe structures such as roads, bridges, and dams.

Given online education's rising popularity, some schools offer online bachelor's degrees through distance learning platforms. Online learners usually take asynchronous classes with no live meetings, but this varies by school. Some civil engineering programs require students to attend campus once or twice a year for intensive laboratory sessions. At other times, enrollees might complete lab work with at-home kits or virtual simulators.

Degree Requirements

Online bachelor's degrees in civil engineering usually have 120-130 credit hours of coursework split between general education and major classes. These programs might take as little as four years to complete with a full-time schedule. However, many students take more than four years to finish, and colleges often have part-time degree plans for enrollees who need to balance work with school and other responsibilities.

Particular programs might require an internship or externship to give you practical work experience. This means you'll work in person at a location approved by your program's administrators, even if all of your courses are online.

Civil Engineering Courses

Required courses for a civil engineering major focus on applying the lessons of mathematics, physics, geology, material mechanics, and other disciplines to the construction of public works. Because civil engineers usually work for or alongside government agencies, many degrees include courses in public policy, along with discussions of professional ethics and project management. To give applicants a flavor of a civil engineering bachelor's program, we've listed a few common online courses below:

What Can You Do With a Bachelor's in Civil Engineering Degree?

Most of these degrees are designed specifically to train the next generation of civil engineers. But not everyone's path is identical after college; you might choose to pursue a graduate degree in this or another engineering specialty, or you may want to enter the workforce right away.

Most civil engineering graduates go on to have careers as civil engineers. As of May 2022, this occupation has a median annual salary of $89,940, or nearly twice the national median for all jobs combined. The field is growing at an average rate of 5% in the 2022-2032 period. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) most recently counted 326,300 civil engineers working in the U.S., with about 21,200 job openings expected each year through the end of the decade. 

You don't necessarily need a state license to become a civil engineer, but you'll almost certainly need one to work on public projects. This is the majority of what most civil engineers do, so most end up getting licensed. See your state's department of licensing for details on requirements in your area.

As discussed, civil engineering education provides good training for other engineering fields. Bachelor's graduates might opt for jobs as environmental engineers or mechanical engineers instead.

Other Engineering Specializations

Engineering is a broad field with many narrower specialties, including civil engineering. But engineering students usually develop many math, science, design, and soft skills during their education that translate well to other specialties. For example, a civil engineering student's understanding of structural weight loads and design processes might prove useful in an aerospace engineering role.

For this reason, some bachelor's graduates go on to earn different types of engineering degrees in graduate school. Others enter the workforce in related engineering occupations for employers who trust in their transferable skills. Here is a list of engineering disciplines you might also consider once you have a bachelor's degree in civil engineering:

Further Education

More education tends to lead to higher salaries and lower rates of unemployment. Engineering employers may even give preference to management candidates with advanced degrees.

Civil engineering master's degrees feature coursework on advanced concepts, usually within a program concentration to help students specialize. Some common concentrations include geotechnical engineering, structural analysis and design, and transportation systems. Faculty might also emphasize leadership skills that graduates can use in management roles. 

Apply To An Online Master's in Civil Engineering

A typical college application timeline begins up to a year before actually starting classes. Most candidates apply to college sometime between November and February when enrolling for the fall term. 

Most colleges ask applicants for the following items: 

• Official high school or GED transcripts showing a minimum GPA of 2.0-2.5 (though minimums can vary)

•  A letter of recommendation from a teacher

•  A personal statement on education and career goals 

• Official ACT or SAT scores, with minimums that vary by school (note that some schools have dropped entrance exam requirements)

FAQs About Bachelor's in Civil Engineering Programs

What Else Should You Consider?

A college education is a serious commitment, so it's important to consider all the factors that matter to you. The questions below might help start this process:

Is this school accredited?

Institutional accreditation is an important marker of quality. It means that an independent organization has thoroughly reviewed the quality of a college's academic standards, curricula, faculty, and services. You can usually find a school's accreditation status on its website or through the U.S. Department of Education's Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs.

Is this online civil engineering program accredited?

Civil engineering program administrators usually seek programmatic accreditation through the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Some states require civil engineers to hold an ABET-accredited degree in order to get a license, so it's important to understand the regulations in the state where you want to work before committing to a program. ABET has historically accredited few fully online civil engineering degree programs, so you might need to attend an on-campus or hybrid program to improve your professional prospects.

ABET has a searchable database of both online and on-campus programs.

Do I want to study online?

Accreditation is the most important factor when considering an online degree. But beyond this, you should consider the nature of online education itself; starting an online education may feel exciting or nerve-wracking, depending on your personality.

Distance learning is flexible and convenient but also less structured than traditional education, so you need the discipline to stay on top of deadlines. At times, you might feel disconnected from colleagues and professors, so be sure to interact with them in discussion forums and consider creating virtual study groups to forge helpful relationships.

What other factors are important to me?

You may want a college stocked with well-reviewed support services. Perhaps a personal friend recommends faculty members at a particular school. Or you might appreciate a diverse student makeup and robust inclusion policies. Think about what your dream college would have, then try to find a real school that matches this as closely as possible.