Messiah College

Most of the graduate programs available at Messiah College are offered online because the college wants students to have the flexibility that they need. Messiah offers programs in nine different subjects, including counseling and business.

Online Master’s Degree Programs Offered at Messiah College

Messiah College appears in our ranking of the Top 35 Most Affordable Accelerated Master’s in Higher Education Online.

The Master of Business Administration (MBA) includes concentrations in digital marketing, management, dietetics, social entrepreneurship, strategic leadership, and management. In the digital marketing concentration, students take Social Media Strategy, Marketing Analytics, and Digital Marketing. Students who choose the dietetic concentration need to do two practicums with some type of direct supervision.

Students can choose from several online nursing programs too such as one in nursing education. Ranked as one of the top graduate programs in nursing by U.S. News and World Report, it includes a 12-credit core and 27 credits of electives. Those electives include Principles of Measurement and Evaluation, Curriculum in Nursing Education, Foundations and Applications of the Nurse Educator Role, and Teaching Methods for Clinical Practice in Nursing Education.

Those who want to study education can choose programs that help them get a license to teach in Pennsylvania. Most of the college’s programs help students complete a Master of Education degree. Messiah College offers an online instruction program for those planning to teach on the web. It includes Family and Community Partnerships, Online Education Leadership and Management, Online Instruction and Learning and Curriculum and Learning. Another option is the college’s special education track, which has courses designed for students without their licenses. Education majors can study Christian education and teach English as a second language too.

MBA students and others can earn online certificates that go along with their bachelor’s degrees or the graduate degrees they earn from Messiah College. The college’s business department offers four online certificate programs, including those in digital marketing and social entrepreneurship. In the social entrepreneurship program, students look at how companies can help others and act in responsible ways. It features Social Business Modeling, Social Media Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Social Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice. Most of the certificate programs do not qualify for the federal government’s financial aid programs.

About Messiah College

Messiah College is a small private college historically affiliated with the Brethren in Christ Church. That Church founded the college in 1909 and called it the Messiah Bible School and Missionary Training Home. Samuel Rogers Smith helped establish the school and choose his hometown in Harrisburg for the campus. Students took classes that prepared them for doing volunteer work in other countries and working for their churches. After building Old Main, the school moved to Grantham and reopened the school on a new campus. It would remain here for many years and acquire some nearby farms, which helped it expand. To meet the needs of new students, the school added a high school and a junior college. The success of those programs led to it becoming a full junior program and then a college.

The college grew even more in the 1950s when it eliminated the high school courses and added its first bachelor’s degree programs. After acquiring Upland College in California, it moved its operations to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania and established a large campus in the city. Messiah would also open a campus in Philadelphia with help from Temple University but later closed it due to a lack of interest from the community. Though Messiah ended its affiliation with the Brethren in Christ Church, it still uses some of the teachings and practices of that Church. The more than 3,200 students who attend Messiah College every year can now choose from more than 150 majors and concentrations.

Messiah College will become Messiah University on July 1, 2020.

Messiah College Accreditation Details

Both the MBA and all other business programs available from Messiah College have accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP). The other accreditation that the college holds is what lets students use the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) every year. This accreditation comes from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) and serves as the college’s regional accreditation.

Messiah College Application Requirements

To help students apply, Messiah shows the application deadline and the steps that students need to follow online. Incoming students need either a bachelor’s degree or a master’s degree and a transcript that shows both the classes they took in that program and the type of degree they earned. They also need a grade point average of at least 3.0 and a completed application. Messiah will review each application carefully and may admit students with a lower GPA if they have more experience and strong applications. Students can demonstrate their strengths with the personal statement/essay, which should be 300 words long but no more than 500 words. This statement needs to show how the student prepared for a graduate program and what they think they will get out of the college.

Grad students applying to Messiah should also provide one letter of recommendation and a resume. The resume must include any professional or volunteer experiences the applicant has that will apply to the program. Messiah will accept letters from academic and employment references but will not accept letters from relatives. Students can also use pastors and other religious leaders as their references.

Tuition and Financial Aid

Messiah charges online graduate students $710 per credit hour, which is a slight increase over the cost it charged for the 2019-2020 school year. Online students are eligible for financial aid provided that they use the FAFSA. Though graduate students typically do not have as much financial aid available to them as undergraduate do, but the college can help them secure student loans from the federal government and use other opportunities. Some of these students may qualify for assistantships that let them work 10 or more hours a week and get tuition waivers and monthly stipends. Those taking online classes can look for off-campus jobs too.

There are grants and scholarships available for graduate students also. Those who need more help than the college can give them can look into the alternative loans that other types of lenders offer. These loans have higher interest rates but are an option for part-time students and those who need more help. Messiah College can help students in all online master’s degree programs qualify for the financial aid that they need.

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