Franklin University Online M.S. in Exercise Science, Strength & Conditioning Specialization

Franklin's strength and conditioning master's is built for adults who already have a bachelor's degree and a job. It's 32 credits, taught in asynchronous 12-week classes, and it ends with a required internship in a real performance setting.

At $690 a credit it costs more than the public options, and its pages don't list programmatic accreditation. Pick it for the coaching-focused coursework and the schedule. Be cautious if the CSCS is your main goal and your bachelor's isn't from a CASCE-accredited program.

Franklin University is a private nonprofit in Columbus, Ohio, founded in 1902 and built for adult learners. This degree sits inside its M.S. in Exercise Science, where you choose Strength & Conditioning or Clinical Exercise Physiology. The strength route is for coaches, trainers, gym managers and fitness coordinators who work with healthy people.

Admission asks for a bachelor's, master's or doctoral degree with a 2.50 GPA. There are no program prerequisites and no GMAT or GRE. A GPA from 2.25 to 2.499 gets you conditional admission automatically, and anything lower can petition with a resume and an essay. So a career changer with a business or psychology degree can apply.

Coursework is asynchronous and each class runs 12 weeks. Franklin says instructors are industry experts. The current schedule lists starts on January 4, May 17 and August 16, 2027, and January 3, 2028, with a recommended register-by date about ten days before each one.

The program page has a state availability checker. In some states the program is offered only through select employer partnerships, so check yours before you apply. The internship happens at a site you arrange with the program, in a real-world performance environment. Everything else, including the EXS 673 lab, is delivered online.

Who It Fits

• Coaches and trainers who want a master's built around the NSCA's CSCS content. Franklin says the curriculum is aligned with the exam, and EXS 673 is an online lab where you learn to spot, cue, progress and regress lifts.
• Working adults who need a predictable pace. Classes run 12 weeks and are asynchronous, so you don't log in at set times. The school says you can finish in as few as 16 months.
• Current service members. They pay $536 per credit instead of $690, which brings the tuition for 32 credits down to $17,152. Our list for military students shows how it compares.

Who Should Skip It

• Skip it if you need a CAAHEP-accredited or CASCE-accredited program on your diploma. Franklin's pages say the curriculum is aligned with the CSCS exam, which isn't the same as accreditation, and the program didn't match either list.
• Skip it if you want to work with patients. Franklin describes this track as teaching you to coach non-clinical populations, and the clinical specialization is a different program with an ECG and pharmacology sequence.
• Skip it if price is your first filter. Our cheapest online exercise science degrees list has public master's programs that cost far less per credit.

You take eight 4-credit courses. Five are shared with the clinical track. EXS 601 Exercise Physiology: Systems and Functions covers how each organ system responds to exercise. EXS 602 Exercise Programming Design and Implementation teaches pre-participation screening, risk classification and test selection.

EXS 665 Behavioral Strategies for Health and Sport Performance looks at motivation, stress and attention. EXS 670 Nutrition for Health and Exercise Performance ends with a weight management plan.

Three courses are specific to strength work. EXS 672 Scientific Principles of Strength and Conditioning covers overtraining, detraining and injury risk, including in children and older adults. EXS 673 Practical Resistance and Conditioning Training is the online lab. EXS 675 Strength & Conditioning Program Design starts with anaerobic testing, moves to plyometric, speed and agility programming, and closes with facility design, legal issues and emergency planning.

The last course is EXS 690 Capstone. It pairs coursework with a practical strength and conditioning experience supervised by qualified industry professionals, for the number of hours your specialty requires.

Courses the School Names

• EXS 601 Exercise Physiology: Systems and Functions
• EXS 602 Exercise Programming Design and Implementation
• EXS 672 Scientific Principles of Strength and Conditioning
• EXS 673 Practical Resistance and Conditioning Training
• EXS 675 Strength & Conditioning Program Design
• EXS 665 Behavioral Strategies for Health and Sport Performance
• EXS 670 Nutrition for Health and Exercise Performance
• EXS 690 Capstone

Standout Features

• Curriculum aligned with NSCA CSCS exam; online laboratory course for practical resistance and conditioning training (EXS 673)

Tuition for 2026-27 is $690 per credit, so 32 credits comes to $22,080. There's a $100 resource fee each semester on top of that. Franklin's tuition guarantee locks your first-term rate as long as you stay enrolled, which helps if you're planning around employer reimbursement.

Service members pay $536 per credit, or $17,152 for the degree. That saves $4,928. Transfer credit is trickier. Franklin's residency rule says 20 of the 32 credits must be earned at Franklin, so at most 12 could come from another school. Those 12 credits would be worth $8,280 at Franklin's rate, and the 20 you must take cost $13,800.

32 credits at $690 a credit comes to $22,080 in tuition, before fees.

Franklin is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, a regional accreditor. The strength and conditioning master's has no programmatic accreditation listed, and it didn't match the CAAHEP or CASCE lists we checked on September 29, 2026.

The credential this track points to is the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA). Today it needs a bachelor's degree plus CPR and AED.

From January 1, 2030, U.S. candidates need a bachelor's from a program accredited by the Collegiate Accreditation for Strength and Conditioning Education (CASCE). That rule is about your bachelor's, so this master's can't replace it. Personal trainer certifications don't need any degree.

Where this degree can lead: Strength and Conditioning Coach Careers.

The full rubric is on the methodology page. A factor marked Peer Median had no published input, so it counts at half weight.

• Franklin's pages disagree about start dates. The schedule lists three starts a year, while the FAQ says there are two, fall and spring.
• The transfer numbers don't fit together. The master's transfer page says up to 22 credits, but a 32-credit degree with a 20-credit residency requirement leaves room for 12.
• Franklin's federal graduation rate is 11 percent. That covers the whole university and first-time, full-time students, so it says little about adults finishing a master's, but it's the only outcome number we have.
• Availability depends on your state. Some states can enroll only through an employer partnership.

• How many internship hours does the strength and conditioning track require, and can my current gym, team or school count as the site?
• Which start dates are actually open to me, the January, May and August schedule or only fall and spring?
• With the 20-credit residency rule, how many transfer credits will you accept from my old coursework or certifications?
• Is my state open to online enrollment, or would I need an employer partnership?
• If my bachelor's isn't CASCE-accredited, what do your graduates do about the CSCS rule that starts in 2030?
• How many semesters will I be billed the $100 resource fee?
• How does the EXS 673 lab work online, and what equipment or space do I need to record my technique?

Franklin is a private nonprofit university in Columbus, Ohio, founded in 1902, that says it was built for adult learners; nearly 80% of students take online courses. It offers an online B.S. in Exercise Science and two online M.S. in Exercise Science specializations.

• Best Online Exercise Science Degrees Rank 78 of 99, master's
• Best Online Master's Programs Rank 78 of 99, master's
• Best Online Exercise Physiology Degrees Rank 13 of 19, master's
• Best Clinical Exercise Physiology Master's Rank 13 of 15, master's
• Best Online Strength and Conditioning Degrees Rank 34 of 39, master's
• No-GRE Online Master's Programs Rank 34 of 44, master's
• Best for Military Students Rank 19 of 35, master's
• Best for Working Adults Rank 43 of 50, master's
• Best for Athletes Rank 14 of 15, master's
• Best 100% Online Programs Rank 63 of 78, master's
• Best Online Programs in Ohio Rank 2 of 5, master's

• B.S. in Exercise Science

  B.S., Bachelor's

  Fully Online $398 per credit Score 55.1

• M.S. in Exercise Science, Clinical Exercise Physiology Specialization

  M.S., Master's

  Fully Online $690 per credit Score 43.4

• Texas Woman's University

  Master of Science in Exercise and Sports Nutrition

  Texas Score 44.7

• Hardin-Simmons University

  Master of Athletic Training (M.A.T.)

  Texas $595 per credit Score 44.9

• Southern Arkansas University Main Campus

  Master of Science in Kinesiology - Coaching

  Arkansas $530 per credit Score 45.0

• Grand Canyon University

  Master of Science in Exercise Physiology

  Arizona $610 per credit Score 45.6