An online computer science degree is one of the few credentials that reliably pays for itself, and the problem is separating the accredited, respected programs from the diploma mills that borrow the name. The accreditation question is the whole game, because a CS degree from an unaccredited program is often ignored by employers, while a regionally accredited one carries the same weight as an on-campus version.The key distinction is institutional versus programmatic accreditation, with regional accreditation of the university being the baseline that matters most, and ABET accreditation of the CS program itself being a strong plus, especially for engineering-adjacent roles. The respected online programs, from schools like Georgia Tech, Arizona State, and others, are regionally accredited and often indistinguishable from their on-campus degrees, which is why employers accept them.The cost varies enormously, from in-state tuition at public universities that can be under ten thousand dollars a year, to private and out-of-state programs that reach several times
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