Quick answer:Paralegal degrees usually cover legal research, drafting, civil procedure, litigation support and case management at associate and bachelor’s level. Paralegals and legal assistants earn a median $62,890 across 392,880 jobs, and while the occupation is projected to be flat at 0.2 percent, it still turns over about 39,300 openings a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34).
What the Coursework Usually Covers
Legal research and writing - statutes, case law, citation, memoranda, and the research platforms firms actually run
Civil litigation and procedure - pleadings, discovery, motions, trial preparation, and the calendar that governs all of it
Legal drafting - contracts, discovery requests and responses, correspondence, and document review
Substantive areas - most programs include some mix of contracts, torts, real property, family law, criminal law, wills and estates, and business organizations
Ethics and professional responsibility - the boundary of the unauthorized practice of law, confidentiality, and conflicts, which is the part employers care most about
Technology and e-discovery - case management systems, document review platforms, and electronic filing
Most programs include an internship or practicum. Ask early how it is arranged for distance students, because a locally placed internship is often where the first job comes from.
Why This Page Exists Separately
CIP 22.0302 and 22.0301, paralegal and legal assistant studies, were awarded by 514 institutions at associate or bachelor’s level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). That makes it one of the better supplied credentials in this silo, and the supply exists because the credential is what employers name.
Two neighboring pages on this site cover different things. The law degree page covers CIP 22.0101, the professional doctorate required before bar admission - a seven-year path from a standing start, with its own regulatory limits on distance study. The legal studies page covers CIP 22.0000 and 22.0001, the generalist bachelor’s and master’s route for people who need legal literacy inside another career rather than a legal job.
This page is the career credential. It is the one a reader wants when the goal is stated as a job title rather than a subject, and the school list below is filtered to institutions that actually award these two codes.
If you want the role described from the inside - daily work, hours, how firms differ from corporate legal departments, what the first year is like - read the paralegal career guide first and come back here for the programs. That guide is the front door to this page.
Before you request information anywhere, ask whether the program holds American Bar Association approval, how the internship is placed, and get a written transfer evaluation of prior coursework. With that filter set, compare online paralegal 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.
Approval, Accreditation and the Difference Between Them
This is the field where people most often confuse two separate things, so it is worth being precise.
Institutional accreditation applies to the school as a whole and should come from a recognized institutional accreditor. It is the gate for credit transfer and for graduate study later, and it is the first thing to confirm about any institution.
Program approval is separate and voluntary. Some paralegal programs hold American Bar Association approval, which is granted at program level rather than to the institution, and a share of job postings list an ABA-approved program as a preference. Many capable programs do not hold it, and the honest way to treat it is as one filter among several rather than a pass or fail.
State rules vary. A few states have their own definitions, registration schemes or educational requirements for who may use the title, and none of that is uniform nationally. Confirm the rules with your state bar association before you choose a program, particularly if you plan to work in a different state from the one where you study.
Credit transfer is decided by the receiving institution and genuinely varies, so request a written transfer evaluation before you enroll.
Associate or Bachelor’s
The two levels answer different questions, and the choice is worth making deliberately rather than by default.
The associate degree is the shorter route and the more common one. It is enough for a large share of postings, particularly at small and mid-size firms, and it is the level most often taken part-time by someone already working. For a reader coming from a trade who wants the fastest credible entry into legal work, this is usually the answer.
The bachelor’s degree matters more in corporate legal departments, government agencies and larger firms, and it matters later rather than sooner - when the move is into senior paralegal, litigation support management, contract administration or compliance work. It is also the level that leaves the door open to graduate study without a bridge program.
A useful way to decide: if you can find ten current postings in your market and eight ask only for an associate, take the associate and let an employer help pay for the rest later. If most of the roles you want name a bachelor’s, the extra two years is the price of that shortlist.
Who This Degree Suits
People who want a defined job, not a subject. The single strongest feature of this credential is that employers ask for it by name. That is rare among the degrees on this site and it is the main reason to prefer it over a general legal degree.
Legal support staff already in the building.Legal secretaries and administrative staff who have absorbed substantive work over time and want the credential that lets them be paid for it. This is the shortest version of the move, since the domain knowledge is already there.
Tradespeople who want out of the field without starting over. The work rewards documentation discipline, deadline management and precision, all of which transfer. The associate degree is a shorter commitment than most degree routes covered here, and it is a genuine change of environment rather than a lateral move.
People weighing law school. Working as a paralegal first is the cheapest available test of whether you want the legal profession at all, and a large share of law students who enjoyed the work had done it before applying. The law degree page covers what that longer path involves.
A paralegal degree is designed to support entry into legal support work. Individual outcomes may vary, and is college worth it covers the general tradeoff.
What These Careers Pay
Paralegals and legal assistants earn a median $62,890 across 392,880 jobs, with a projected change of 0.2 percent through 2034 and about 39,300 openings a year (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34).
Paralegal Careers at a Glance
Metric
Detail
Source
Median annual wage
$62,890
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Mean annual wage
$69,700
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Wage range
$44,740 (10th pct) - $101,500 (90th pct)
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Employment
392,880 paralegals and legal assistants
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Projected change (2024-34)
0.2%, about 39,300 openings per year
BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34
Typical credential
Associate or bachelor’s in paralegal studies
Program catalogs
Institutions awarding
514
IPEDS Completions, 2024
Geo coverage
State, metro and city pages - see Programs by State below
Senior and supervising roles, corporate and specialized practice
All wage figures BLS OEWS, May 2025; growth figures BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34.
The distance between $44,740 and $101,500 is the most useful thing on this page. It is a wide spread for a single occupation, and it is driven mostly by practice area, employer type and seniority rather than by the degree level itself. Litigation support, intellectual property, corporate transactional work and e-discovery consistently sit toward the upper end; general practice at a small firm sits toward the lower one.
The mean of $69,700 sits above the median of $62,890, which is the signature of a long upper tail: a minority of well-paid specialists pulling the average above the typical worker. Plan for the median at entry and treat the top quartile as something reached by specializing, not by graduating.
And on the flat projection: 0.2 percent growth with 39,300 openings a year is a market that hires steadily without expanding. That is a different risk profile from a declining field, and a different one from a booming one. It means the job will be there, and it means you will be competing for it against people who trained for it specifically, which is the argument for the named credential over a general degree.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do paralegals make?
The national median annual wage is $62,890 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The bottom 10 percent earn $44,740 or less and the top 10 percent earn $101,500 or more, across employment of 392,880.
Is paralegal work a growing field?
It is a stable one rather than a growing one. Employment is projected to change by 0.2 percent from 2024 to 2034, moving from 376,200 to 376,800, with about 39,300 openings per year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34). Those openings come almost entirely from turnover and retirement, and 39,300 a year is a substantial hiring market even without growth.
Do you need a degree to work as a paralegal?
There is no national license for the role, and requirements vary by state and by employer, so confirm what applies where you intend to work. In practice most postings ask for a paralegal certificate or an associate or bachelor's degree in paralegal studies, which is why 514 institutions award CIP 22.0302 and 22.0301 at those levels (IPEDS Completions, 2024).
What is an ABA-approved paralegal program?
Some paralegal programs hold American Bar Association approval. It is voluntary and program-level rather than institutional, and many employers list an ABA-approved program as a preference in job postings. Ask any program directly whether it holds that approval, and note that the institution itself should also hold accreditation from a recognized institutional accreditor.
Associate or bachelor's?
The associate is the faster route into the role and is what a large share of postings accept. The bachelor's tends to matter for corporate legal departments, government roles and later movement into management or compliance. Both levels are covered on this page.
Can you do a paralegal degree online?
Yes. The work is research, drafting and case management, all of which transfer to distance delivery. Any internship component is usually arranged locally, so ask how the program handles that before you enroll.
How is this different from a legal studies degree?
Paralegal programs sit under CIP 22.0302 and 22.0301 and are built to place a graduate into a named occupation. Legal studies sits under CIP 22.0000 and 22.0001 and is a generalist academic degree at bachelor's and master's level that does not target one job title. If the goal is the job, this is the page.
Is paralegal work a realistic move from a trade?
It can be. The role rewards organization, documentation discipline and deadline management, all of which transfer from field and shop work, and the associate degree is a shorter commitment than most degree routes on this site. Individual outcomes may vary.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 - Paralegals and Legal Assistants (SOC 23-2011)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2024-34
U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS Completions, 2024 - CIP 22.0302, CIP 22.0301
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/.
