Accelerated Online Social Work Degrees Guide

Accelerated online bachelor of social work (BSW) degrees are designed for students who’ve completed some college but haven’t earned their bachelor’s degree, who want to enter the field faster.

Finishing your degree quickly is typically more attractive to students. BestColleges asked students exploring BSW degrees what they cared about most in their college search, and the top priority, with 26% of responses, was finishing fast. If you’re looking to finish your college degree and fast-track your path to social work, check out these accelerated programs.

As an accelerated online BSW student, you can expect an intense course load in a shorter amount of time to graduate you faster.

While these classes are fully online, you’ll also complete in-person fieldwork, which will get you the required supervised experience – though it may make working a job difficult while you study.

These programs are designed to graduate you in 1.5-2 years by leveraging the transfer credits you bring into the program. The best candidates are students with at least 2 years of existing credit who can step back from work or pause it entirely to focus on their studies.

How fast you graduate depends on two things: The program you enroll in and the amount of credits you transfer. The average time to complete a program featured on our list is 22.5 months, or a little less than two years. Some even take as little as over a year to finish.

Here are some examples of how long a program could take you based on how much transfer credit you have:

Accelerated online BSW programs rely on you completing program prerequisites before enrolling and require transferring credits. Here’s what you need to qualify:

Here are 10 schools with fast BSW programs. Some take as little as 15 months and others closer to two years, depending on the amount of transfer credits you bring in and the program’s required courses.

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte takes first place for the most affordable in-state tuition, while Mount Vernon Nazarene University is the most affordable for out-of-state students.

An online bachelor’s in social services — which includes social work — costs around $9,000 in tuition and fees for in-state students and $11,000 for out-of-state students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

For a two-year online accelerated social work degree, you can expect to spend around $9,000-$15,000 on your program, assuming you qualify for some financial aid.

For example, Keuka College charges $556 per credit for its accelerated online social work program, whereas Misericordia University charges $460 per credit. Mount Vernon Nazarene University, meanwhile, only charges $350 per credit.

Before you apply to online fast-track social work degree programs, look for programmatic accreditation from the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). CSWE is the primary accrediting agency for social work programs in the United States.

Accreditation from CSWE ensures your program meets rigorous standards and provides quality education and training for aspiring social workers.

You should also confirm the school is institutionally accredited, ideally by a regional accreditor. College accreditation impacts not only employment and licensure but also your ability to qualify for federal financial aid and transfer credits.

Clinical social work roles require an MSW and a license to practice. If you want to go right into the workforce with your bachelor’s, you can become a community health worker or social and human service assistant.

On average, all social work professions are projected to grow, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A fast-track social work degree can be challenging to a working adult learner due to the field work demands and more intense course load in a short time. But it also means you finish your degree faster than the average student.