Get a Degree in Drones: Earn $100,000 a Year

There will be more than 100,000 new drone related jobs  nationally by 2025 , according to a 2013 report by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International,

Dozens of universities are offering — or planning to offer — drone programs. “We don’t call them drones, we call them unmanned aircraft systems integration,” says Marty Rogers, director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration at the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, according to MarketWatch.

There is even a university specializing in drones. “We keep inventing courses that have never been taught before,” says Jerry Lemieux, president of the Unmanned Vehicle University in Phoenix. Lemieux — a former Top Gun pilot in the U.S. Air Force and Delta 767 pilot — founded the school in 2012. It offers a certificate (4-credit course), Masters (9-credit course) and Ph.D. (12-credit course) for $1,600 per credit. The online courses range from the law surrounding drones to pilot training, which also involves two days at one of the university’s 10 flight schools. One recent graduate, he says, snagged a job as a UAV (unmanned aviation vehicle) analyst at an aviation manufacturing company in Florida earning $100,000 a year.