Start with the price. Elizabeth City State reports $1,000 a year in
in-state tuition, which is the lowest figure of the 87 programs ranked on this site.
Campbell University reports $38,880. Those are two bachelor's degrees in
one state, roughly 39 times apart, feeding the same occupation and holding the
same kind of institutional accreditation. Across four years the difference is
$151,520, which is more than the national median salary in this field. No other
state on this site puts a decision that large in front of a reader.
The second thing to know is what North Carolina actually does with these graduates. BLS counts
420 emergency management directors in the state, 3.1% of the national
total and the 10th largest market of the 46 it publishes. That is a
real market, and unlike most states on this site, studying here and working here is a
reasonable plan rather than a hopeful one.
The Ranked Emergency Management Programs In North Carolina
Scored on graduation rate, cost, delivery, selectivity and how directly the degree targets
emergency management. Full weighting on the methodology page.
Elizabeth City State University appears twice because it runs two separate degrees in this
field, not one degree recorded twice.
Emergency management programs in North Carolina ranked by score
#
School
City
In-state tuition
Graduation rate
Online
Score
1
Elizabeth City State University
Elizabeth City
$1,000
44%
Yes
67.8
2
Elizabeth City State University
Elizabeth City
$1,000
44%
No
63.3
3
Campbell University
Buies Creek
$38,880
61%
No
42.1
1
Bachelor's In Earn Your Online Homeland Security Degree Today
Elizabeth City State University
Elizabeth City, North Carolina
Online
ECSU's homeland security degree is the online sibling of its emergency management degree, taught in a different department and aimed at people already working.
This one is delivered 100% online and ECSU states plainly who that is for: working professionals and students who need flexibility. The program sits in the Department of Protective and Human Studies rather than with the emergency management degree, and the framing follows from that. It is built on national security and criminology principles and points at security, intelligence and emergency response roles. The curriculum ECSU publishes covers Homeland Security Operations, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Emergency Management and Planning, Intelligence and Information Analysis, and Criminal Justice Systems. A homeland security minor is available alongside it.
Compare it with the emergency management degree above before choosing, because the two are not interchangeable and ECSU runs both. That one is hands-on and campus-based, built around hazmat, radiological and drill work and paired with aviation. This one is fully online, weighted toward intelligence, terrorism and criminal justice, with emergency management as one strand of five. If the target is running county disaster operations, the other degree is the closer fit. If it is an intelligence or federal security role, or if you cannot come to Elizabeth City, this is the one that will actually work. The program coordinator is Jullian C. Bishop, Sr., M.A.
Delivered 100% online for working students
Intelligence, terrorism and criminal justice weighting
Homeland security minor available
Sibling degree to the same university's emergency management BS
ECSU pairs the degree with aviation and unmanned aerial systems, runs hazardous materials and radiological monitoring exercises, and does it at the lowest in-state tuition of any program on this site.
The Emergency Management program teaches the full cycle the field is organized around, and the page names five phases rather than the usual four: prevention, preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery. What separates it from the rest of this ranking is what happens outside the lecture. Students train on hazardous materials, run radiological monitoring exercises, take part in disaster simulations and drills, and use the equipment itself. ECSU also runs a campus Community Emergency Response Team it describes as nationally recognized and award-winning, where students train in fire safety and search and rescue and practice disaster medical operations, alongside a student chapter of the International Association of Emergency Managers.
The minor pairings are the other distinguishing feature, and ECSU has thought about them harder than most. Aviation and Unmanned Aerial Systems are offered on the reasoning that emergency managers coordinate airborne resources during response and that drone surveys assess damage and prioritize effort, which is a working argument rather than a course-catalog listing. Biology, Business Management, Technology and Data Science, Engineering and Social Work each come with their own stated rationale. The research side follows the same thread: students work on airport disruption studies, travel to national conferences, and have collaborated with the Federal Aviation Administration under a UC Berkeley CATres grant. Two named graduates show where it leads, one a Pollution Responder Division Chief with the Coast Guard in Guam and one the Chief of External Affairs and Communications at North Carolina Emergency Management.
The department chair, Dr. Kevin Kupietz, sits in the Department of Aviation and Emergency Management, and Dr. Dorothy Henderson-Bell is the program coordinator. Beyond the major there is an Emergency Management minor and two certificates, one in Emergency Management for Athletic Facilities and one in Natural Disasters that is taught online. The honor societies are Epsilon Pi Phi, which the page describes as the first nationally recognized emergency management honor society, and the Order of the Sword and the Shield.
Hazmat training, radiological monitoring and live disaster drills
Aviation and unmanned aerial systems minors built around the major
Campbell says it was the first college in North Carolina to offer a four-year undergraduate degree in homeland security, and it is the only program in the state you have to attend in person.
The major is built around the Critical Mission Areas named in The National Strategy for Homeland Security, and Campbell lists them: intelligence and warning, border and transportation security, domestic counterterrorism, protecting critical infrastructure and key areas, defending against catastrophic threats, and emergency preparedness and response. The degree draws on criminal justice, information technology and social science, and the stated learning outcomes are concrete enough to check against. Students should understand the processes of the criminal justice system, learn the vocabulary of the field, become familiar with domestic and international terrorist organizations, recognize strategies for disaster prevention, and examine the regions where international terrorist organizations form. Faculty specializations named on the page include cybersecurity and threats, international relations, foreign policy, emergency management and maritime security. The coordinator is Dr. Amanda Sharp Parker.
Two things to weigh honestly. This program finishes last of the 87 in the national ranking, and the reason is cost rather than teaching: at $38,880 it is the most expensive degree in this state by a wide margin, and cost carries the second-heaviest weight in the model. Its graduation rate, 61%, is the highest in North Carolina. The second is that this is a homeland security degree taught in person over four years, with emergency preparedness and response as one mission area of six. Campbell advertises local, state and national internship placements, which is the argument for a degree you have to turn up for and the reason someone might pay the difference.
North Carolina's first four-year homeland security degree
In person only, four years
Built on the National Strategy for Homeland Security mission areas
A price gap this size deserves an honest answer rather than a reflex one, so here is what each
side of it holds. The two Elizabeth City State University degrees are cheap because ECSU is a
public UNC System campus, and the published in-state figure is what the federal data holds for
it. The emergency management BS is the more distinctive of the two by some distance: hazardous
materials training, radiological monitoring exercises, live disaster drills, aviation and
unmanned aerial systems minors built around the major, and research work with the Federal
Aviation Administration. That is a hands-on degree, and it costs $1,000.
Campbell University costs $38,880 and finishes last of the 87 programs in the
national ranking for that reason, because cost carries the second-heaviest weight in the
model. What the score does not capture is that it also has the state's best graduation rate at
61%, that it says it was the first four-year homeland security degree in
North Carolina, and that it places students in local, state and national internships. If those
placements are the reason you would attend, they are a defensible reason. What is not
defensible is paying the difference without knowing it exists, and a reader looking only at
program pages would not.
One more distinction the tuition column hides. Two of these three are homeland security
degrees and one is an emergency management degree, and they are not the same subject. If the
goal is running county disaster operations rather than intelligence or federal security work,
that matters more than the price does, and the
national ranking holds far more programs
built the first way.
What An Emergency Management Director Earns In North Carolina
Emergency management is the field and the degree, not a job title. The occupation the federal
government tracks against it is
emergency management director,
SOC 11-9161, and that is the code behind every wage figure in this section.
The median is $93,840, 19th of the 47 states BLS publishes and
close to the national $93,330. The shape underneath is the interesting part.
The bottom 10% earn $66,800 against $54,210 nationally, so the floor here
is unusually high. The top 10% reach $129,980 against $166,430 nationally, a
gap of $36,450, so the ceiling is unusually low. The middle half sits between
$78,010 and $118,920. Read together: North Carolina is a good place to
start in this occupation and a harder place to reach the top of it.
Compare every state.
Accreditation For Emergency Management Degrees In North Carolina
CAEMHSE accredits degrees in this field, but it is thinly held and not CHEA-recognized, so it
will not narrow this list. Both institutions here hold institutional accreditation, which is
the thing that actually governs credit transfer and federal aid, and it is verifiable per
school rather than taken on trust. What applies instead.
Common Questions About Emergency Management Programs In North Carolina
How many emergency management programs are there in North Carolina?
3 ranked bachelor's degrees across 2 institutions. Elizabeth City State University runs two of them, an on-campus emergency management BS and an online homeland security degree, and Campbell University runs the third, which is in person only.
What is the cheapest emergency management degree in North Carolina?
Either of the two at Elizabeth City State University, both at $1,000 a year in-state, which is the lowest in-state tuition of any program ranked on this site. ECSU publishes a separate online rate of $5,000. The most expensive is Campbell University at $38,880, roughly 39 times as much, a difference of $151,520 across four years.
Can you study emergency management online in North Carolina?
1 of the 3 can be taken online, and both are homeland security degrees rather than emergency management degrees: ECSU's is delivered 100% online, Campbell's is in person only, and ECSU's emergency management BS is the campus-based one. If the requirement is emergency management specifically and online specifically, the national online ranking is the better place to look.
Do emergency management directors earn well in North Carolina?
The middle of the market is normal and the top is not. The state median is $93,840 against $93,330 nationally, 19th of the 47 states BLS publishes. But the top 10% reach $129,980 here against $166,430 nationally, a gap of $36,450. The floor is the compensation: the bottom 10% earn $66,800, well above the national bottom decile of $54,210.
Are there emergency management jobs in North Carolina?
More than in most states. BLS counts 420 emergency management directors here, 3.1% of the national total, the 10th largest of the 46 state markets with a published count. This is one of the states where studying and working in the same place is a reasonable plan.
Which North Carolina program has the best graduation rate?
Campbell University, at 61%. That figure is institution-wide rather than specific to the degree, which is true of every graduation rate in this ranking, and it is worth setting against its tuition of $38,880.
Emergency Management Programs In Other States
62 of the 91 programs we hold are online, so for most of this
list the state you study in and the state you work in need not match. These are the other
states we rank, with what each one holds.
