The MBA program at University of North Carolina Wilmington is among the best bargains in the country, according to a list published Monday by the online business education resource Top Management Degrees. The program at Cameron School of Business ranked 48th on Top Management Degrees’ list of the 50 most affordable Master of Business Administration degree programs. It was the only one in North Carolina that made the list.

“This is a great honor.  Affordability is a key hallmark of our program as we seek to educate students in North Carolina and beyond,” CSB dean Robert Burrus said in an email Monday.

To compile its list, Seattle, Washington-based Top Management Degrees looked at the more than 500 business schools in the United States that have earned accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International. The online resource then gathered data from AACSB, the National Center for Education Statistics and from individual program websites, according to a news release.

The MBA programs were ranked on the sole criterion of cost, using in-state tuition and fees, the release stated.

There is more to the Cameron School’s graduate program than just affordability, Burrus added.

“The high quality of our program … is what really puts us in these discussions,” he wrote in the email.  “Our dedicated faculty and staff remain student centered – even while moving the frontier in business research, and the flexibility of our program allows us to recruit high caliber students.”

Accompanying each listed program was a description of the program. Top Management Degrees noted that UNCW’s MBA is a 32-credit hour, part-time evening program that combines flexible courses with face-to-face interaction and networking. Core topics range from communications and decision making to technological innovation, social responsibility and ethics.

The program’s estimated tuition and fees total $13,686, Top Management Degrees reported.

Also on Monday, Charlotte-based Value Colleges released its Top 50 Best Value Education Programs of 2016. UNCW’s undergraduate teacher preparatory program was one of five in North Carolina that made this list. It ranked 13th, after programs at Appalachian State University (7th), University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (8th), N.C. State University (12th) and ahead of East Carolina University (49th).

Its rankings of teacher education programs, Value Colleges stated in the release, are based on data from the U.S. News & World Report ranking, PayScale, and tuition information found on the universities’ websites. In its description of UNCW’s offerings, Value Colleges noted the various undergraduate teaching programs at UNCW’s Watson College of Education.

“With resident tuition only around $200 per credit, students can earn a teaching degree without saddling themselves with excessive debt, making UNCW a trusted value,” the description stated.