Quick answer:Hospitality management degrees usually cover lodging operations, food and beverage, revenue management, and hospitality law. Lodging managers show a median of $69,250 and food service managers $69,390, with modest growth of 3.4% and 6.4% through 2034 (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). This is an operations degree, and it is worth being clear-eyed about what it does and does not unlock.
What the Coursework Usually Covers
Lodging operations - front office, housekeeping, property management systems, and the daily mechanics of running rooms
Food and beverage management - menu costing, purchasing, service standards, and the profit-and-loss side of a kitchen
Revenue management - rate strategy, forecasting, distribution channels, and the arithmetic behind occupancy decisions
Hospitality accounting and finance - the uniform system of accounts, departmental reporting, and cost control
Hospitality law and risk - liability, alcohol service, employment obligations, and safety compliance
Events, tourism and guest experience - group business, meetings, and the marketing that fills a property
Most programs include a supervised internship or a documented hours requirement. At a distance that is usually satisfied at your own workplace, which suits someone already employed in the industry, so ask exactly how a program approves and verifies those hours.
Why This Page Is Not the Restaurant Management Page
CIP 52.0901, hospitality administration and management, is a distinct program code with 423 institutions awarding it at associate or bachelor’s level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). This site already covers restaurant and food service management, which sits under CIP 52.0905 and 52.0909 and lists a different set of schools.
The two overlap in the labor data on purpose. Food service managers, SOC 11-9051, appear on both pages because both degrees genuinely feed that occupation. The thing that separates the pages is not the job title, it is the program code, and the program code is what determines which schools appear in the list below. Somebody searching for hospitality management wants hotel, resort and event programs. Somebody searching for restaurant management wants kitchen and beverage programs. Sending both to one page gave one of them the wrong school list.
The practical difference in the curriculum is scope. Hospitality management treats the property as the unit, including rooms, events and the food outlets inside it. Restaurant management treats the outlet as the unit and goes deeper into culinary operations.
Before you request information anywhere, ask how the internship requirement works for distance students and whether your current job can satisfy it. With that filter set, compare online hospitality management 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 working in hotels or food service. This is the main audience and the one the degree serves best. Someone running a shift already knows the operations; what the degree adds is the financial and revenue-management vocabulary that corporate roles screen for.
Cooks and kitchen leads moving to the business side. The chef and cook career route tops out in the kitchen. Hospitality management is one of the standard ways people move from producing the product to running the property, and the associate level is a reasonable first step because it can be done while still working.
Trades people who ended up in facilities or property roles. Building trades experience translates well into resort and property operations, where maintenance, capital projects and vendor management are a large share of the job.
Credit transfer is decided by the receiving institution and genuinely varies, so request a written transfer evaluation before you enroll.
The Honest Tradeoff
Hospitality is an industry where experience is genuinely respected and a degree is genuinely optional at the property level. That cuts both ways.
It means the degree is not a gate you must pass to get into management, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Plenty of general managers have no hospitality credential.
It also means the degree earns its keep at specific junctions rather than continuously. Corporate and multi-property roles, revenue management, brand-side positions and any move into a large management company tend to screen on the credential. So does a move between segments, because a resume built entirely inside one property type reads narrow.
The wage data supports a measured view. The lodging manager median of $69,250 sits below the top quartile of $94,030 by a wide margin, and the spread from $40,070 at the bottom decile to $128,880 at the top is one of the widest in this part of the site. Property type, brand and market drive most of that spread. The degree is one input among several. Individual outcomes may vary.
What These Careers Pay
Lodging managers earn a median $69,250 across 42,620 jobs; food service managers earn $69,390 across 238,430 jobs (BLS OEWS, May 2025).
Hospitality Management at a Glance
Metric
Detail
Source
Median annual wage
$69,250
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Wage range
$40,070 (10th pct) - $128,880 (90th pct)
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Employment
42,620 lodging managers
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Projected change (2024-34)
3.4%, about 5,400 openings per year
BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34
Typical credential
Associate or bachelor’s, with experience weighted heavily
Program catalogs
Institutions awarding
423
IPEDS Completions, 2024
SOC codes covered
11-9081 lodging managers; 11-9051 food service managers
BLS OEWS, May 2025
The Two Management Tracks Compared
Role
Median
75th percentile
Employment
Projected change
Lodging managers
$69,250
$94,030
42,620
3.4%
Food service managers
$69,390
$86,800
238,430
6.4%
All wage and employment figures BLS OEWS, May 2025; growth figures BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34.
The medians are nearly identical, which surprises people. Where they separate is the upper tail: lodging managers reach $128,880 at the 90th percentile against $107,640 for food service managers, because large branded properties and resorts pay well above a single restaurant. The volume runs the other way, with 238,430 food service management jobs against 42,620 in lodging and about 42,000 openings a year against 5,400.
Read as a career decision, that means lodging offers a higher ceiling and far fewer seats, while food service offers many more entry points at a similar median. A hospitality management degree is one of the few credentials that keeps both doors open, which is a fair part of its value.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do lodging managers make?
The national median annual wage is $69,250 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The bottom 10 percent earn $40,070 or less and the top 10 percent earn $128,880 or more, across employment of 42,620.
Is hospitality management a growing field?
Modestly. Lodging manager employment is projected to grow 3.4% from 2024 to 2034 with about 5,400 openings per year, and food service manager employment 6.4% with about 42,000 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). The openings are driven mostly by turnover rather than expansion.
Do you need a degree to manage a hotel?
Not always. Plenty of general managers worked up from front desk or housekeeping supervision. The degree tends to matter most for corporate roles, branded property management and revenue management positions, where employers screen on it.
Hospitality management or restaurant management?
They are different program codes. Hospitality management is CIP 52.0901 and leans toward lodging, events and the property as a whole; restaurant and food service management sits under CIP 52.0905 and 52.0909 and leans toward kitchen and beverage operations. This site covers the second on its own page.
Can you study hospitality management online?
Yes, at both associate and bachelor's level. The classroom portion is management, accounting and law rather than laboratory work. Many programs still require a supervised internship or a documented work-hours component, so ask how that is handled at a distance.
What do food service managers earn?
The median is $69,390 across employment of 238,430, with the top 10 percent at $107,640 or more (BLS OEWS, May 2025). That is close to the lodging manager median of $69,250 but across a far larger workforce.
How many schools offer this degree?
423 institutions awarded CIP 52.0901 at associate or bachelor's level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). It is one of the better-supplied business program codes, so shortlisting on format and internship handling matters more than availability.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 - Lodging Managers (SOC 11-9081), Food Service Managers (SOC 11-9051)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2024-34
U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS Completions, 2024 - CIP 52.0901
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/.
