Quick answer:Cloud computing degrees usually cover networking, virtualization, cloud architecture, automation and security at associate or bachelor’s level. Computer network architects earn a median $134,050 with a projected change of 11.9 percent through 2034, while the operational administrator role is projected at -4.2 percent (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). This is a thin-supply degree at 31 institutions, and the page says so plainly.
What the Coursework Usually Covers
Networking fundamentals - routing, switching, addressing, and the protocol behaviour underneath everything else
Virtualization and containers - hypervisors, container runtimes, orchestration, and what actually happens to a workload when it scales
Infrastructure automation - infrastructure as code, configuration management, and continuous deployment pipelines
Cloud security and identity - access control, key management, network isolation, logging and audit
Monitoring and reliability - observability, capacity planning, incident response and postmortem practice
Widely recognized vendor certifications sit alongside this coursework and are what a large share of employers screen on. Ask whether a program’s labs and assessments align to any of them, because that alignment is the single most useful thing a cloud program can offer.
A Thin-Supply Degree, Stated Plainly
31 institutions awarded CIP 11.0902 at associate or bachelor’s level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). That is one of the smallest counts anywhere in this silo, and it is worth being direct about what it means.
It means your realistic school list is national rather than local, and the online format is not a convenience here so much as the default. The state and metro pages below break that same national pool down by location and add state wage data. Online delivery is what makes those pages useful for a degree taught in few places: a program you attend remotely is reachable from a state whether or not a campus sits inside it.
The scarcity is a timing artifact rather than a signal about the work. Cloud infrastructure became the dominant delivery model faster than degree programs were written for it, so most of the teaching still happens inside broader information technology, computer science and cybersecurity programs, plus the vendor certification tracks. A dedicated CIP 11.0902 program is the exception, not the norm.
The practical consequence: if the 31 institutions do not include one that fits your schedule or budget, a broader computing degree with a cloud concentration is a legitimate substitute, and this site covers those separately. Compare the dedicated programs first.
Colleges Offering This Degree
Every school listed is verified in federal IPEDS data both to award this degree and to offer programs that can be completed entirely by distance education at this level. Whether this exact degree is delivered fully online varies by school, so confirm the format before you apply.
How we rank schools – graduation rate, graduate earnings, cost and retention.
Advertising plays no part.
This page lists 10 schools, closest group first, then ordered by
BOC Score with the highest at the top.
10 of them carry a score.
LOCAL RANK
Location / proximity to this page
Defines the local group
Graduation rate how often students finish
30%
Median earnings, 10 years after entry whether it paid off
25%
Average net price what students actually pay after aid; lower ranks higher
20%
Retention rate how many come back for year two
15%
Fully online availability whether you can study while working
10%
Scores come from IPEDS (2024) and the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard.
Earnings are for all graduates of a school, not one program, so treat them as a signal
about the institution rather than about this subject.
Sponsored listings are paid placements and are labelled as such; they are separate from
this ranking and never change it. Read the full methodology.
People already in IT operations. Server, help desk and network roles all sit adjacent to cloud work, and this is the shortest structured route across. Much of the underlying knowledge transfers directly.
Tradespeople who think in systems and failure modes. Redundancy, load, capacity and single points of failure are the vocabulary of infrastructure work and also of electrical, mechanical and process trades. The concepts move over; the tooling is what has to be learned.
Anyone who wants an associate degree as a genuine checkpoint. This credential is awarded at associate level, which allows a staged entry rather than a four-year commitment up front.
Credit transfer is decided by the receiving institution and genuinely varies, so request a written transfer evaluation before you enroll.
Design Is Growing, Operations Is Not
The two occupations this degree feeds are moving in opposite directions, and that split is the most useful thing on this page.
Computer network architects are projected to change by 11.9 percent from 2024 to 2034, from employment of 179,200 to 200,600, with about 11,200 openings a year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). These are the people who decide what the infrastructure should be.
Network and computer systems administrators are projected to change by -4.2 percent over the same period, from 331,500 to 317,700, with about 14,300 openings a year. These are the people who keep it running by hand.
Cloud computing is itself a large part of the reason for the second number. Provisioning, patching, capacity expansion and failover configuration were the classical administrator workload, and managed services and automation have absorbed a great deal of it. That work did not move to another title. It largely stopped being done manually.
What did not get automated is design and judgement. Someone still decides how a system fails, what it costs at scale, where the data lives and who can reach it, and those decisions have grown more consequential as infrastructure has grown more abstract. The wage data reflects it: architects report a median of $134,050 and administrators $99,130 (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
For a student the reading is straightforward. Weight the architecture, automation and security coursework over the administration coursework, and treat manual operations as the thing you are training to eliminate rather than the job you are training to hold. The computer network architect career guide covers the destination role in more detail.
Is It Worth It?
The case for is the architect row: $134,050 at the median, employment of 179,740, and 11.9 percent projected growth is a strong combination, and the skills are in demand across essentially every industry rather than concentrated in one.
The case against is the supply. 31 institutions is a small field to choose from, program quality will vary, and the vendor certification route is a genuine competitor that costs less time. If a dedicated program near your circumstances does not exist, the answer is a broader computing degree rather than a worse cloud one. Outcomes vary.
Computer network architects earn a median $134,050 across employment of 179,740, with a projected change of 11.9 percent through 2034 (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34).
Cloud Computing at a Glance
Metric
Detail
Source
Median annual wage
$134,050
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Mean annual wage
$139,580
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Wage range
$79,900 (10th pct) - $202,680 (90th pct)
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Median hourly wage
$64.45
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Employment
179,740 computer network architects
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Projected change (2024-34)
11.9%, about 11,200 openings per year
BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34
Typical credential
Associate or bachelor’s, plus vendor certifications
Program catalogs
Institutions awarding
31
IPEDS Completions, 2024
Geo coverage
State, metro and city pages - see Programs by State below
Site structure
SOC codes covered
15-1241 computer network architects; 15-1244 network and computer systems administrators
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Architecture Against Administration
Role
Median
25th percentile
75th percentile
Employment
Projected change
Computer network architects
$134,050
$104,620
$168,200
179,740
11.9%
Network and computer systems administrators
$99,130
$78,010
$126,640
314,340
-4.2%
All wage and employment figures BLS OEWS, May 2025; growth figures BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34.
Administration is the larger occupation today at employment of 314,340, and it is the shrinking one. Architecture is smaller at 179,740 and growing. Most people entering this field start on the administration row and the question that decides the next decade is how quickly they move off it, which is a question about design and automation coursework rather than about tooling familiarity.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do cloud and network architects make?
Computer network architects, the occupation most senior cloud work is counted in, report a national median annual wage of $134,050 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The bottom 10 percent earn $79,900 or less and the top 10 percent earn $202,680 or more, across employment of 179,740.
Is cloud computing a growing field?
Computer network architect employment is projected to change by 11.9 percent from 2024 to 2034, from 179,200 to 200,600, with about 11,200 openings per year. Network and computer systems administrators, the operational side, are projected to change by -4.2 percent over the same period (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). The growth is in design, not in operations.
How many schools offer a cloud computing degree?
31 institutions awarded CIP 11.0902 at associate or bachelor's level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). That is one of the thinnest supplies in this silo, and that scarcity is what the state and metro pages below have to work with.
Is a cloud computing degree better than vendor certifications?
They answer different questions. Widely recognized vendor certifications are what a great deal of cloud hiring screens on, and they can be earned without a degree. A degree is designed to supply the networking, security and systems fundamentals that make the certifications mean something, and it is more portable across platform generations. Many people end up doing both.
What is the difference between this and an information technology degree?
Cloud computing sits under CIP 11.0902, a narrow code held by 31 institutions. An information technology degree is a much broader credential covering support, networking, systems and security across a wider set of programs. If you want the broad credential, the IT page on this site covers it. If you specifically want infrastructure delivered as a service, this is the narrower code.
Can you study cloud computing online?
Yes, and it is close to the ideal subject for it. The laboratory work is remote infrastructure by definition, so a student in a distance program uses the same environment as a student on campus.
Does this suit someone coming from a skilled trade?
It can. Infrastructure work is systems work: capacity, redundancy, failure modes and load, which are the same concepts an electrical or mechanical trade already deals in. The associate degree is a common first rung. Individual outcomes may vary.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 - Computer Network Architects (SOC 15-1241), Network and Computer Systems Administrators (SOC 15-1244)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2024-34
U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS Completions, 2024 - CIP 11.0902
About this guide: Researched and written by the TradeCareerPath Editorial Team. Our editorial team researches and sources every trade school and career guide using federal labor and education data, including BLS OEWS and Employment Projections, DOL apprenticeship records, IPEDS, College Scorecard, and state licensing boards. We follow the editorial standards documented at /editorial-policy/.
