Quick answer:Real estate degrees usually cover property management, real estate finance, valuation principles, and land use law. They are aimed at the salaried side of the industry - property and asset management pays a median $69,990 against $52,830 for sales agents (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Programs, careers and pay are covered below.
What the Coursework Usually Covers
Real estate principles and law - estates and interests, title, contracts, agency, and land use and zoning
Real estate finance - mortgage structures, capitalization rates, debt coverage, and how a deal is underwritten
Valuation and appraisal principles - the sales comparison, cost and income approaches, and what drives each
Property and asset management - leasing, operating budgets, maintenance planning, tenant relations and association governance
Investment analysis - cash flow modeling, hold-period returns, and the arithmetic behind a purchase decision
Development and construction basics - entitlement, feasibility, and reading a project budget
The finance and valuation sequence is the part that separates this degree from licensing education. It is also the part that employers on the commercial and institutional side screen for.
What This Degree Is, and What It Is Not
The single most useful thing to say about a real estate degree is what it does not do. It is not a real estate licence. Sales and brokerage are regulated at state level, each state’s real estate commission sets its own education, examination and renewal framework, and none of that is administered by a college. Anyone planning on sales work should confirm the current requirements directly with their own state commission first, because the requirements differ meaningfully from state to state and change.
What the degree is designed for is the salaried and analytical side of the industry: property and asset management, valuation, development, lending, and commercial brokerage support. Those roles are hired on coursework and analysis rather than on a sales licence, and they are where a two- or four-year credential does real work.
CIP 52.1501, real estate, is a distinct program code, and 156 institutions awarded it at associate or bachelor’s level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). That is thin supply nationally, and it shapes what the state and metro pages below have to work with. It is also why a reader searching this term who lands on the broader business and management degrees hub sees a school list that mostly does not award it.
Before you request information anywhere, separate the licensing question from the degree question, ask how much of the program is finance and valuation rather than sales practice, and get a written transfer evaluation. With that filter set, compare online real estate 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.
#1
University of Maryland-College Park
📍
College Park, MD
•In-state option•BOC Score
89.1
The median for real estate sales agents is $52,830, the lowest median of any occupation covered across this batch of degree pages, and the distribution behind it deserves explaining rather than burying.
Sales agent pay is overwhelmingly commission-based. The 10th percentile is $32,970 and the 90th is $123,590, and that spread is not mostly seniority - it is transaction volume in a given year, in a given market, at a given point in the interest rate cycle. There is no salary floor holding up the bottom of that range, and the occupation is projected to grow 3.1 percent with about 36,600 openings a year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34), a slow rate for a field with continuous entry.
Property, real estate and community association managers are the more useful comparison for someone weighing a degree. That occupation pays a median $69,990, employs 311,180 people against 193,370 sales agents, and is largely salaried. It is the destination the coursework actually maps to.
None of this argues against sales work, which suits some people extremely well. It argues against treating a degree as the route into it, since sales entry runs through state licensure and a brokerage, not through a campus.
Who This Suits
Tradespeople moving toward property and facilities work. If you already know what a roof, a boiler or a service panel costs to replace, property management gives that knowledge a budget to sit against. The cost estimator career guide covers the closely related pricing role, and the facilities management degree is the adjacent credential for building operations specifically.
People aiming at the commercial or institutional side. Valuation, underwriting support, asset management and development analysis all reward the finance and modeling coursework, and none of them are reachable from sales licensing alone.
Investors who want the arithmetic properly. Cash flow modeling, capitalization and hold-period analysis are teachable, and doing them badly is expensive.
Anyone already licensed and looking to move up the salaried ladder, where an associate or bachelor’s is often the screening requirement.
Credit transfer is decided by the receiving institution and genuinely varies, so request a written transfer evaluation before you enroll.
Is It Worth It?
The case for is that the analytical half of the real estate industry hires on exactly what this degree teaches, and that half is more stable than the transactional half. A property manager’s income does not disappear when transaction volume falls; a commission income can.
The case against is the growth rates. Both destination occupations grow slowly, at 3.1 and 3.6 percent, and neither is degree-gated in the way that nursing or engineering is. Plenty of property managers arrive from maintenance, leasing or accounting without this specific credential. The degree accelerates and formalizes a route rather than opening a closed one.
Is college worth it covers the general cost and time tradeoff. Individual outcomes may vary.
What These Careers Pay
Property, real estate and community association managers earn a median $69,990 across 311,180 jobs, and real estate sales agents a median $52,830 across 193,370 jobs (BLS OEWS, May 2025; BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34).
Real Estate at a Glance
Metric
Detail
Source
Median annual wage (anchor role)
$52,830 real estate sales agents
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Wage range (anchor role)
$32,970 (10th pct) - $123,590 (90th pct)
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Mean annual wage (anchor role)
$69,510
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Employment
193,370 real estate sales agents
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Projected change (2024-34)
3.1%, about 36,600 openings per year
BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34
Typical credential
Associate or bachelor’s; sales work is state-licensed separately
Program catalogs
Institutions awarding
156
IPEDS Completions, 2024
Geo coverage
State, metro and city pages - see Programs by State below
Site structure
SOC codes covered
41-9022 real estate sales agents; 11-9141 property, real estate and community association managers
BLS OEWS, May 2025
Salaried Management Against Commission Sales
Role
Median
75th percentile
Employment
Projected change
Property, real estate and community association managers
$69,990
$97,910
311,180
3.6%
Real estate sales agents
$52,830
$82,020
193,370
3.1%
All wage and employment figures BLS OEWS, May 2025; growth figures BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34.
The management row leads on every measure that matters to someone financing a degree: a higher median, a higher 75th percentile at $97,910, a larger workforce, a higher floor at $41,010 against $32,970, and slightly faster growth. It is also the row where an employer reads a transcript.
The sales row has the higher ceiling relative to its median, and the mean of $69,510 sitting well above the median of $52,830 tells you where the money concentrates - a minority of agents write a large share of the transactions. That is a real opportunity for the right person and a poor thing to plan a household budget around in the first years. Individual outcomes may vary.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need a degree to work in real estate sales?
No. Real estate sales is a state-licensed activity, and the licensing framework is set by each state's real estate commission rather than by a college. A degree is not the license and does not replace it. Confirm the current requirements with your own state commission before you enroll in anything.
How much do real estate sales agents make?
The national median annual wage is $52,830 (BLS OEWS, May 2025). The bottom 10 percent earn $32,970 or less and the top 10 percent earn $123,590 or more, across employment of 193,370. The spread is wide because most of the pay is commission rather than salary.
How much do property and real estate managers make?
Property, real estate and community association managers earn a median $69,990, with a range from $41,010 at the 10th percentile to $139,680 at the 90th (BLS OEWS, May 2025). Employment is 311,180, which is considerably larger than the sales agent occupation.
Is real estate a growing field?
Modestly. Real estate sales agents are projected to grow 3.1 percent from 2024 to 2034 with about 36,600 openings a year, and property, real estate and community association managers 3.6 percent with about 39,000 openings a year (BLS Employment Projections, 2024-34).
What is a real estate degree actually for, then?
It is designed for the salaried side of the industry: property and asset management, valuation, development, commercial brokerage support, and lending. Those roles screen on analytical coursework in a way residential sales does not. Individual outcomes may vary.
How many schools offer a real estate degree?
156 institutions awarded CIP 52.1501 at associate or bachelor's level in 2024 (IPEDS Completions, 2024). It is one of the smaller categories on this site, and that thinness carries into the state and metro pages linked below.
Can you study real estate online?
Yes. The coursework is financial and legal rather than laboratory-based, so it transfers to distance delivery well. Any state licensing education is a separate matter handled through your state commission, so keep the two questions apart when you compare programs.
Does a trade background help in real estate?
It can, particularly in property management, inspection-adjacent work and renovation-led investment, where knowing what a building actually costs to repair is a real advantage. Individual outcomes may vary.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2025 - Real Estate Sales Agents (SOC 41-9022), Property, Real Estate, and Community Association Managers (SOC 11-9141)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, 2024-34
U.S. Department of Education, IPEDS Completions, 2024 - CIP 52.1501
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/.
