Where Can You Complete An Online Medical Sonography Program In 2024

Reviewed By Reviewed By Published: Jan 11, 2024, 1:34pm A career in sonography is high paying, requires relatively little education and centers around helping people. If this sounds like a career fit for you, a bachelor’s degree in medical sonography provides comprehensive knowledge of the field and hands on experience through lab courses and internships.

Only one school, Oregon Institute of Technology (OIT), currently offers an online medical sonography program that meets our ranking criteria. Read on to learn more about this program, what to consider before enrolling and frequently asked questions. Why You Can Trust Forbes Advisor Education The Forbes Advisor Education team is committed to bringing our readers unbiased rankings and trustworthy, informative articles covering higher learning institutions, individual degree programs, bootcamps, professional credentials and various career paths.

Our team sources data from the National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. We also pull information from reputable professional organizations and education providers’ direct websites. Our rankings use a strict methodology to determine the best schools, programs or bootcamps for each category.

Moreover, an expert advisory board of experienced professionals and educators reviews and verifies Forbes Advisor Education content to ensure accuracy and completeness. Degree Finder Oregon Institute of Technology Headquartered in Klamath Falls, offers several online programs and operates campuses in Wilsonville, Salem and Seattle, Washington.

Practicing registered sonographers can complete OIT’s online diagnostic medical sonography degree completion program. Incoming students receive 80 credits for prior sonography experience and must complete 45 credits of professional coursework, including a two part externship at their current workplace.

To qualify for admission, all applicants must be registered diagnostic sonographers through the American Registry for Diagnostic Medical Sonography (ARDMS) in the fields of abdomen and OB/GYN sonography. They must also be currently employed with access to a sonography lab. OIT charges all online students a tuition rate of $308 per credit regardless of their location.

How To Find the Right Online Medical Sonography Program for You Ready to earn your online degree? Here’s how to narrow down your options. A medical sonography degree leads to a specific career, so evaluate your goals before committing to one of these programs. Since OIT’s program only admits students who are already registered sonographers, this program is suited for practicing sonographers looking to expand their career opportunities.

Most healthcare facilities only require sonographers to have a relevant certificate or an associate degree. Pursuing a higher degree helps hone your craft, broaden your skill set and increase career mobility. An online sonography program can qualify you as a lead sonographer, chief sonographer or sonographer supervisor, where you teach and evaluate other sonographers and provide departmental quality assurance.

If you aspire to one of these positions, a bachelor’s degree in sonography may help you get there. Remember that you’ll also need significant professional experience in the field. OIT charges $308 per credit. Although all incoming students earn 80 credits at OIT for prior professional experience, for comparison, we can extrapolate that per credit rate over a typical 120 credit bachelor’s program, which translates to total tuition costs of around $37,000.

According to the , as of the 2021–22 school year, the average four year institution charged $17,251 in annual tuition, which translates to nearly $70,000 for a four year degree. As such, OIT’s program is very affordable by comparison. To finance your education, you should fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

The FAFSA is the gateway to financial aid opportunities like grants, loans, work study programs and scholarships. Some of these opportunities may also be available through schools and nonprofit organizations. Should You Enroll in an Online Medical Sonography Program? An online degree, especially in a field as practice focused as sonography, is the right fit for a certain type of student.

To determine if that’s you, ask yourself a few key questions. Accreditation for an Online Medical Sonography Program There are two main types of accreditation: institutional and programmatic. Institutional accreditation involves vetting a school for the quality of its programs, faculty, student services and outcomes, among other categories.

You should only enroll at schools with institutional accreditation, as this is the only way to qualify for federal financial aid. Moreover, employers may not consider your degree valid if your school isn’t accredited. The U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) oversee the institutional accreditation process.

To verify your school’s accreditation status, visit CHEA’s school directory or the accreditation page on your school’s website. Programmatic accreditation provides quality assurance in specific fields. While programmatic accreditation is not essential in sonography, you should watch for accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP).

Featured Online Schools Learn about start dates, transferring credits, availability of financial credit and much more by clicking 'Visit Site' Our Methodology We scored one accredited, nonprofit college offering an online medical sonography degree program in the U.S. using 16 data points in the categories of credibility, affordability, student outcomes, student experience and application process.

We pulled data for these categories from reliable resources such as the ; private, third party data sources; and individual school and program websites. Data is accurate as of January 2023. We scored schools based on the following categories: We listed the only school in the U.S. that met our ranking criteria.

Find our full list of methodologies . Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Online Medical Sonography Programs Washington does not list qualification requirements for ultrasound techs in Washington, leaving it up to individual employers. However, the state prefers graduates from CAAHEP accredited diagnostic ultrasound programs or those holding ARDMS registration in abdominal and obstetric ultrasound.

The states that the best paid sonographers work in outpatient care centers. These individuals earned a median annual wage of $83,890 in May 2022. It depends on your qualities as a student and the path you choose. There are more nursing programs than sonography programs, so sonography may be a more difficult field to enter; however, each field requires testing, clinical hours, certification and knowledge of various medical concepts..