K–12 educators can earn their graduate degree in this affordable, online, accredited program. It’s easy to apply and become an enrolled student.
Upcoming Fall Semester Deadlines
$750 per Course
10 Courses to Degree
Start Any Semester
At $750 per course, our MA program is highly affordable. Scholarships and financial aid can reduce this cost even further.
Next Application Deadlines
Join us for a Q&A session on Zoom. You will meet program administrators, current students, and recent graduates who will give you an overview of the program, walk you through the application process, and answer your questions.
Next Open House: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 8 p.m. ET
We are proud to partner with Gettysburg College to offer an MA in American History that is affordable on a teacher’s salary and manageable while working full time. You'll meet history educators from all across America and share tips for communicating to your students the knowledge you gain. If completing your degree sounds like too much to take on right now, you can sample the program by taking up to four courses as a non-matriculated student.
Eligibility: We are currently accepting teachers, district supervisors, librarians, museum professionals, and National Park Service employees.
Each course is designed and led by a distinguished professor from the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s network of scholars. These eminent historians create syllabi and reading lists, present lectures, and hold live Q&A sessions with students. Adjunct instructors guide day-to-day coursework and communication. These instructors are well versed in distance-learning best practices and are dedicated to student success. They assess all student work, prompt and moderate discussion boards, and help students with course material and questions.
Scholarships, financial aid, and veterans’ benefits can reduce that cost even further, making this one of the most affordable graduate programs in any subject. In most states, a graduate degree boosts an educator’s salary so that the MA in American History will likely pay for itself in less than three years.
Taught by Timothy Shannon (Gettysburg College)
Taught by Stephen Vider (Cornell University)
Taught by Barbara Perry (University of Virginia)
“I am so thankful for the Gilder Lehrman MA program.”
—Eileen Bailey (Teacher at Tupelo Middle School in Tupelo, Mississippi)
“One of my favorite aspects of the program is the Q&As with our professors. They are rock stars in their field and yet they give their time to us so graciously and thoughtfully.”
—Rebecca Roth (Teacher at Auburn High School in Brodhead, Wisconsin)
“I love this program. It is accessible and affordable for teachers but also rigorous and challenging.”
—Coby Carlucci (Teacher at Marblehead Veterans Middle School in Marblehead, Massachusetts)
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT on Zoom
Meet program administrators, current students, and recent graduates who will give you an overview of the program, walk you through the application process, and answer your questions.
The Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History is a fully online, fully accredited, thirty-credit degree program. Following the completion of ten three-credit courses, including Historiography and Historical Methods and the Capstone in American History, students are awarded a master’s degree in American history from Gettysburg College.
Yes. Graduate participants can take up to four courses (or twelve credits) as non-matriculated students. To attend as a non-degree participant, please select the non-degree option from the program drop-down menu on the online application.
Yes. Gilder Lehrman online graduate courses are generally eligible for CEU and PDP credits, but it is your responsibility to verify eligibility with your school administration or state PD office prior to enrolling in a course. If you need more information to determine eligibility than is available on the course information page, please email us at onlinecourses@gilderlehrman.org.
All admitted candidates who enroll in the program will become students of Gettysburg College, and will be subject to and must comply with all program, school, and university policies and procedures applicable to students, including but not limited with respect to core course requirements, academic standing, degree requirements, academic integrity, behavioral standards, withdrawal policies, and use of university-provided information technology, as set forth in the Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman Student Handbook.
K–12 educators who are affiliated with the Gilder Lehrman Institute and possess a bachelor’s degree are eligible. K–12 educators include teachers, district supervisors, librarians, museum professionals, and National Park Service employees.
In order to be eligible for the Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman MA program, applicants/students must maintain their affiliation with the Gilder Lehrman Institute as a K–12 educator. In the event that a student individually or through their employer discontinues their Gilder Lehrman affiliation, such individual will no longer be eligible to participate in the program following completion of the semester in which the student is enrolled at the time of cessation of the GLI affiliation.
If you are a K–12 educator who is not affiliated with a particular school (for instance, if you’re a retired, substitute, temporary, or part-time teacher), please email onlinecourses@gilderlehrman.org. You may be eligible to participate in this program.
No. In order to pursue graduate credit through the Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman MA program, participants must already have an undergraduate degree. If you are a high school student, you may wish to explore the free courses we offer in our History U and History School programs. If you are a college student, you may wish to explore our Self-Paced Courses.
Each three-credit course costs $750 for the 2023–2024 academic year.
Graduate bills will be available within three business days of registering for a course. The student will receive a notice when the bill is ready via their gettysburg.edu email address. Students registering for courses within three days of the tuition due date or after the due date have 72 hours to make payment once they receive their bill.
No. Students are expected to purchase, rent, or borrow books. We do attempt to keep total book costs below $100 per course and post readings to Moodle course sites whenever possible.
You are eligible for a full refund if you withdraw from your course before the add/drop deadline one week into the semester. After that, you are able to withdraw but you will not receive a refund.
The add/drop deadline for Fall 2023 is September 27, 2023.
Log into the Campus Experience platform and follow these instructions to pay your tuition.
Yes. Students can apply for federal financial aid. Additionally, all students in this program may apply for scholarships from the Gilder Lehrman Institute. Students in the program are not eligible for Gettysburg College scholarships.
You may be eligible for Federal Direct Stafford Unsubsidized Loans and private education loans to cover tuition and other education-related costs. Students who apply for federal loans receive their financial aid award letters via mail within two to four weeks of FAFSA submission. Notification times for private education loans vary by lender. Please contact the Gettysburg College Office of Financial Aid for more information.
You can find student loan information on the US Department of Education Federal Student Aid website. To start the process, you will need to file the free application for federal student aid (known as FAFSA) listing Gettysburg College as the school of choice. This can be done online at www.fafsa.gov. The FAFSA school code for Gettysburg College is 003268. Please note that if you do not receive your FAFSA approval before the registration deadline and you are ultimately approved for financial aid, you can apply the aid toward courses for the following term.
John Nau Scholarship: Applications for 2023 are now closed. Ten John Nau scholarships of $10,000 each will be awarded in 2023 to K–12 educators in the Houston and San Antonio areas in Texas. Scholarships cover tuition reimbursement for $7,500 (10 courses) and reimbursement for up to $2,500 for course textbooks for the MA program and Gilder Lehrman Institute professional development and materials, which includes registration and travel costs for professional development programs, GLI books, Self-Paced Courses, Traveling Exhibitions, or other Gilder Lehrman materials.
Dev Chodry Scholarship: Ten Dev Chodry Scholarships of $750 each will be awarded in 2024 to students taking more than one course during a single semester. These scholarships help students complete their degrees faster and advance their salaries sooner!
Eligible students can receive tuition benefits offered by the GI Bill®. For general information about veterans’ benefits, please contact the Gettysburg College Office of Financial Aid.
You can access the application on the To Apply page with instructions on what materials to include. Once you have filled out the “Apply Now” form through the Gilder Lehrman website, you will be redirected to the Gettysburg College website to complete the application.
Click here for more information on how to fill in the Gettysburg College application.
For the Spring 2024 semester, you need to apply by Thursday, January 25, 2024.
A decision is typically made within four to six weeks following Gettysburg College’s receipt of all application materials.
In your acceptance letter, you will be directed to fill out a form acknowledging that you will enroll in the program. You will then receive your Gettysburg account credentials, which will be available in your application portal. It can take up to 10 days for your credentials to be created. If you are not starting in the upcoming term, you will not receive your credentials until closer to your start date. Access your application portal here.
Once you’ve received your login credentials, you can begin completing tasks on your student dashboard. You must complete the Dashboard at least one week before the start of classes. It will take approximately five minutes. Here is the link to access the Dashboard.
Registration for the Fall 2023 term ends September 27, 2023.
Log into the Campus Experience platform and follow these instructions to register for courses.
Section professors will appear in the course catalog alongside the lab section once they are assigned.
Please note that there is a hold on registering for more than two courses. Email the registrar’s office at registrar@gilderlehrman.org if you would like to lift the hold.
If you are registering for the Capstone in American History, email the registrar’s office at registrar@gettysburg.edu as they will need to enroll you manually.
You should speak to your academic advisor about the academic and financial penalties associated with withdrawing from a course.
When withdrawing from courses during the first week of the semester, students are eligible for a 100 percent refund. There will be no refund for courses dropped after week one.
The add/drop deadline for Fall 2023 is September 27, 2023.
To drop a course, log into Campus Experience where you registered for your course. In the left-hand menu select “Enrollment.” Underneath that, select “Drop Classes.”
You are eligible for a full refund if you withdraw from your course before the add/drop deadline one week into the term. After that, you are able to withdraw but you will not receive a refund. If you withdraw from your course after this date, please email the registrar’s office at registrar@gettysburg.edu and inform your section professor.
Each Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman course is led by a professor from the Gilder Lehrman Institute’s network of scholars. These eminent historians create syllabi and reading lists, present lectures, and hold live Q&A sessions.
Each section of a course has an adjunct instructor to guide day-to-day coursework and communication. These instructors, referred to as section professors, are well versed in distance-learning best practices and are dedicated to student success. They assess all student work, prompt and moderate discussion boards, and help students with course material and questions.
The typical workload for online courses is five 1- to 2-page response papers, a fifteen-page research paper or project of equivalent length completed in stages during the semester, and weekly posts to course discussion boards. (Note: Students must gain instructor approval to pursue the project option.) Reading assignments are approximately 75–125 pages per week and consist of primary and secondary sources. Participants are also required to attend three of the five live Q&As led by the course’s lead professor.
Lectures are posted to the online learning platform every Thursday and can be viewed asynchronously. Five live Q&A sessions are held with the lead professor over the course of the semester. Students are expected to attend at least three of these.
Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman online courses are on the Moodle learning platform. When you enroll, you will receive a username and password for both your Gettysburg College email and your Moodle account. That account will stay valid for all subsequent courses, but you may be asked to change your password from time to time.
You should be comfortable using your computer for email and web browsing. There is an asynchronous new-student webinar that will open before courses begin. This webinar will teach you to use Moodle as well as Gettysburg College and Gilder Lehrman Institute databases.
Note: This webinar is accessible online throughout the semester.
Most recent computers with a good Internet connection can be used to access the courses. You do not need any special equipment to participate in the course. You will need headphones or onboard speakers to listen to and watch the lectures. In order to participate in the live Q&A sessions, you will need a webcam or, at least, your computer’s onboard microphone.
Note: Almost all computers have an onboard microphone. If you do not have a webcam or onboard microphone, and cannot attend Q&A sessions as a result, you will be able to complete a separate assignment in lieu of participating in Q&A sessions.
This course lets you apply the knowledge you have acquired throughout the MA degree program by conducting original research.
Students must complete twenty-four credits before they can sign up for the Capstone course. Email onlinecourses@gilderlehrman.org for instructions on how to register for the course.
Click here to view a video by Dr. Laura Ping for information about the Capstone course and how to prepare for it. Contact onlinecourses@gilderlehrman.org to learn more about the Capstone course.
No. Capstone projects are approved during the opening weeks of the Capstone in American History. However, if you will enroll in the Capstone within the next three semesters and want to receive early feedback about potential research topics, you can contact capstone@gilderlehrman.org. Note: This email address is checked weekly on Fridays.
You will need to pass, with a grade of B- or higher, ten three-credit courses and maintain a GPA of 3.0.
The MA must be completed within five years. If you are unable to complete your degree in five years, you can apply for an extension.
Students are required to complete Historiography and Historical Methods and the Capstone course. Historiography and Historical Methods is a prerequisite to enrollment in the Capstone course. It is recommended, but not required, that you take Historiography and Historical Methods early in the program, as it will help you succeed in other courses.
In 2022, the Gilder Lehrman Institute partnered with Gettysburg College to offer its MA in American History. Students of previous iterations of the GLI MA program will need to transfer into this new program.
Yes. You need to apply to Gettysburg College. This page explains the application process.
Yes. All matriculated credits (and up to twelve non-matriculated credits) earned with a grade of B or better through the Pace–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History Program will be accepted into the Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History.
Yes. All matriculated credits (and up to 12 non-matriculated credits) earned with a grade of B or better through any Gilder Lehrman MA program will be accepted into the Gettysburg College–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History.
Credits earned through other institutions will be considered for transfer on a case-by-case basis.
If you have not yet begun your Capstone, you may enroll in Gettysburg College in order to complete it and receive your degree.
Email onlinecourses@gilderlehrman.org and we will help you through the process.
Email the Gettysburg College student helpdesk (G-Tech) at gtech@gettysburg.edu or call 717-337-6935.
For questions about billing and tuition, email the Gettysburg College Student Accounts Office at studentaccounts@gettysburg.edu.
For questions about financial aid, email finaid@gettysburg.edu.
Email the Gettysburg College Registrar’s Office at registrar@gettysburg.edu.
Email onlinecourses@gilderlehrman.org and we’ll direct you to someone who can help.
The application portal is where you will go to view your admissions decision and receive your Gettysburg login information after you are admitted into the program.
You will find tasks on the student dashboard to complete one week before your first semester begins.
Moodle is where you access course materials and the Student Orientation and Resources module. Please consult this walkthrough of how a course is structured in Moodle.
Campus Experience is where you access the course catalog, register for classes, and pay your tuition.
The academic calendar includes key dates for applying to the program, registering for and withdrawing from courses, and graduation.
Fall 2023 Dates:
