Quick answer:Database administration degrees usually cover data modeling, warehousing and database management. The skills can feed growing data engineering roles; the job title itself is flat, and this page treats that as the main thing to know. Programs, the careers this degree opens, and what they pay are covered below.
What the Coursework Usually Covers
Relational theory and data modeling - normalization, schema design, and the reasoning behind both
SQL and query optimization - execution plans, indexing, and why a query that worked yesterday does not today
Database administration - installation, backup and recovery, high availability, capacity planning
Data warehousing - dimensional modeling, ETL and ELT design, the analytical side of the discipline
Database security and governance - access control, encryption, auditing, retention and privacy obligations
Cloud and distributed databases - managed services, NoSQL stores, and the architectures that replaced single-server thinking
Vendor certifications from the major database platforms are commonly pursued alongside the degree and are what many employers screen on. Ask whether a program’s coursework aligns to any of them.
Why This Page Exists Separately
CIP 11.0802, “data modeling, warehousing and database administration,” is a distinct program code with 69 institutions awarding it at degree level (IPEDS Completions, 2024). It previously sat inside this site’s data science page, which meant a search for database administration training landed on a data science page and saw data science schools.
Separating it makes the school list below the institutions that actually award this credential. At 69 institutions the supply is thin, which is why this page carries no state or metro tier - a state-level page for a degree taught in 69 places nationally would be padding.
Before you request information anywhere, ask whether the coursework aligns to the vendor certifications employers commonly screen on and get a written transfer evaluation. With that filter set, compare online database administration programs enrolling now:
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 or support who want to specialize. The move from systems administration to database work is short and well trodden.
Methodical, systems-minded people from technical trades. Of the computing routes covered on this site, this one typically has a lighter mathematics prerequisite than artificial intelligence or data science. The reasoning it rewards, careful and structural, is familiar from trade work.
Anyone aiming at data engineering who wants the foundations properly rather than picking them up piecemeal.
Credit transfer is decided by the receiving institution and genuinely varies, so request a written transfer evaluation before you enroll.
Before you shortlist schools, it also helps to be precise about where the traditional DBA work actually went.
What Replaced the Traditional DBA Role
The -0.7 percent projection is not mysterious, and understanding what caused it is the best guide to where the work went.
Managed cloud services absorbed the operational layer. Provisioning, patching, backup scheduling, failover configuration and capacity expansion were a large share of the classical DBA workload, and cloud providers now do most of it. That work did not move to another job title; it largely stopped being done by hand.
What did not get automated is design and performance. A badly modeled schema is still badly modeled in the cloud, and a query that scans a billion rows still scans a billion rows. Data modeling, indexing strategy, partitioning and query optimization remain human work and are getting more valuable as data volumes grow.
Governance grew. Privacy regulation, retention obligations, access control and audit requirements have expanded steadily, and someone has to own them.
The practical implication for a student: weight the design, warehousing and governance coursework over the administration coursework. The first two are where the field went.
Is It Worth It?
The case for is that the skills are foundational and durable even where the job title is not. Every analytics and machine learning system sits on top of data that somebody modeled and somebody maintains, and doing that well is not losing value.
The case against is the projection, stated plainly: -0.7 percent and about 3,800 openings a year is a small and static market for the specific title. If the plan is to hold the job title “database administrator” for twenty years, the federal projection does not support it. If the plan is to use the skills as a route into data engineering, it looks considerably better.
Is college worth it covers the general tradeoff. Individual outcomes may vary.
What These Careers Pay
Database administrators earn a median $104,620 across 69,990 jobs, but employment is projected to change by -0.7 percent through 2034 (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34).
Database Administration at a Glance
Metric
Detail
Source
Median annual wage
$104,620
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Wage range
$60,230 (10th pct) - $163,320 (90th pct)
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Employment
69,990 database administrators
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Projected change (2024-34)
-0.7%, about 3,800 openings per year
BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34
Typical credential
Bachelor’s, with master’s common for senior roles
Program catalogs
Institutions awarding
69
IPEDS Completions, 2024
Geo coverage
Parent page only - supply is too thin for a state tier
IPEDS Completions, 2024
SOC codes covered
15-1242 database administrators; 15-1252 software developers; 15-2051 data scientists
BLS OEWS, May 2025
The Honest Version First
Most degree pages lead with the wage. This one leads with the projection, because it is the number that should shape the decision.
Role
Median
75th percentile
Employment
Projected change
Database administrators
$104,620
$135,460
69,990
-0.7%
Data scientists
$120,230
$158,880
262,440
33.5%
Software developers
$135,980
$171,980
1,687,890
15.8%
All wage and employment figures BLS OEWS, May 2025; growth figures BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34.
Database administration pays well and is not growing. Managed cloud database services have taken over a share of the provisioning, patching and backup work that used to define the role, and the occupation has flattened as a result.
That does not make the coursework a bad investment. It makes the job title a poor thing to plan a decade around, while the skills feed directly into roles that are growing sharply. Data modeling, query performance, warehousing design and data governance are all central to data engineering work, and data engineering is counted in the rows above that are growing at 33.5 and 15.8 percent.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do database administrators make?
The national median annual wage is $104,620 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The bottom 10 percent earn $60,230 or less and the top 10 percent earn $163,320 or more, across employment of 69,990.
Is database administration a shrinking field?
Employment is projected to change by -0.7 percent from 2024 to 2034, with about 3,800 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). That is a flat-to-declining occupation, and this page says so plainly rather than around it. Managed cloud database services have absorbed a share of the traditional administration workload.
Is a database administration degree still worth doing?
As a specialization inside a broader computing credential, often yes - data modeling and warehousing skills feed directly into data engineering and analytics roles that are growing. As a standalone bet on the DBA job title, the projection above is the number to weigh. Individual outcomes may vary.
How many schools offer this degree?
69 institutions awarded CIP 11.0802 at bachelor's or master's level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). It is a small category, which is why this page carries no state or metro tier.
What is the difference between a database administrator and a data engineer?
Administration keeps the database running - availability, performance, backup, security. Data engineering builds the pipelines that move and shape data for analysis. The two overlap heavily now, and data engineering roles are typically counted under data scientists at a median of $120,230 or software developers at $135,980 (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
Can you study database administration online?
Yes, straightforwardly. The subject is entirely computational and needs no laboratory or clinical component. Vendor certifications from the major database platforms are commonly pursued alongside the degree.
Is this a realistic move from a technical trade?
It can be. Database work rewards methodical, systems-minded people, and the entry mathematics is typically lighter than for AI or data science. An IT associate degree is the common first step. Individual outcomes may vary.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 - Database Administrators (SOC 15-1242), Software Developers (SOC 15-1252), Data Scientists (SOC 15-2051)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2024-34
U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS Completions, 2024 - CIP 11.0802
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/.
