The Most Affordable Organizational Leadership Bachelor’s, Master’s, and MBA Degree Programs in the Country

Leadership positions require a serious college education, and that means making a serious investment. This simple guide can help you save a lot of money on tuition with zero compromises.

It doesn’t matter what the industry is, if you want to be at the top of the team, college is in your future… and quite possibly a lot of it, with many organizations looking for graduate degrees as qualification for their top executives. That’s as true in the commercial construction industry as it is with high finance—there’s no way around it.

But few can easily afford the full cost of a college degree these days. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, almost 70 percent of students take out loans to complete their college education these days. On average, the amount borrowed to finance an undergraduate degree is more than \$27,000, and just over \$25,000 for a graduate program.

Maybe you don’t want to stack up that kind of debt on your way to an executive position, or maybe you can’t easily qualify for the loans. In any case, a savvy leader is going to be looking at high-value organizational leadership degrees to get the most for every tuition dollar spent.

There is a tendency to associate leadership roles with big money, but that’s really only true in some careers and industries. And it doesn’t reflect the importance of strong organizational leaders—a small-town fire chief may not be in the running for a seven figure salary, but lives depend on their leadership skills. Similarly, many major non-profit and governmental organizations need excellent, visionary leaders… but the goals they pursue are more charitable than financial.

So we’ve gone out and identified some of the most affordable bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in organizational leadership available in the United States today.

Our Method for Pinning Down the Most Affordable Organizational Leadership Degrees in the Country is Simple

When we started looking at the wide array of different kinds of leadership programs available across the country, one thing become clear right away: we needed to make an apples-to-apples comparison to really see what was affordable to you. It’s no good comparing a major urban university on the East coast with a quiet Midwestern college campus. So all our cost estimates for colleges are made in comparison to averages for schools within the same state.

At the same time, we separated those average calculations between public and private schools. While universities in both categories can be relatively affordable, each has different funding mechanisms and different kinds of advantages. It doesn’t make sense to compare them directly, but only to other schools in the same category.

And, naturally, we have only compared bachelor’s degree program costs to other bachelor’s programs, and master’s to master’s.

To make the list, all that’s required is that the total estimated cost of the program is below the state average for comparable programs.

In cases where there’s only a single program in that category in a state, it is included by default—but we’ll tell you where that’s the case.

Many schools that have strong leadership studies programs will offer both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in the field. And because of the way that leadership careers often come together, you may be considering either one. So we have made our listings school by school, and show both programs when they both come in below the respective cost averages.

In cases where one or the other program is above the average and the other one meets our criteria, we give the featured spot to the affordable one but also note all other related degrees on offer.

Affordable Doesn’t Mean Lowering High Standards for Quality Leadership Training

Part of being an effective organizational leader is finding synergies and efficiencies. If you didn’t believe you could accomplish more with less, you’d never even take the job.

The same can be true of schools.

A high price tag is no guarantee that a degree has a high value.

The wide range of different specializations, different philosophies, and unique opportunities can mean that the perfect program for you is completely different than one for someone on a different career path.

That all means you can get a great organizational leadership education at a very affordable price. But you will have to do your homework to make sure that the school you pick aligns with your needs and career goals.

So we put together a key highlight reel for each of these affordable programs to help you narrow down the ones that will match your lifestyle, budget, and aspirations.

For starters, we list the total estimated program cost for in-state students (and tell you what the out-of-state per credit tuition rate is, if applicable). So you can absolutely count costs if that is your most important factor.

Usually it’s not, though. So we note the many other factors that can influence your decision over where to apply, things like: