Perhaps you’re already in the education field and you would like to further your career; online degrees are a great way to get ahead while still working in your current position. With each passing year, online degrees are gaining more respect, so making building up your resume from the comfort of your home computer is becoming even more attractive. How can an online degree advance your career in education? Here are three ways: 1. More money. It’s no secret that people with more education tend to make more money, and US Census data proves it. In a report entitled The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings, researchers concluded that the average difference between a high school and college graduate’s earnings is nearly $1 million over the course of a lifetime. Add a master’s degree to the mix, and it goes up another $400,000. How much difference does a master’s degree in the teaching profession make? Starting salary differences across the 50 states range from $2,000 to $9,000. 2. More skills. Online courses that stress leadership, management, communication, and critical thinking can help you become a more valuable employee and open up countless opportunities to you; back at school you can use your new skills to take initiative in leading new groups or programs and show administrators that you’re interested in bettering yourself and well as your students–who also just might be inspired by your hard work as well. 3. More responsibility. Perhaps you’re reaching a point in your career where you want to be more in control not only of your own work destiny but also that of others. One way to show your boss that you’re ready for more responsibility is to take online courses, managing your normal workload in addition to your coursework and becoming a more valuable contributor to your workplace in the process.