a bachelor's degree in animal science is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #64 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 8 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for animal science students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 1,034 bachelor's degrees in animal science to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Animal Science School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The animal science bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we include a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on animal science students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other animal science students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How much debt animal science students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized animal science related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for animal science students working on their bachelor's degree.
The animal science school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Animal Science Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in animal science has to look into University of California - Davis. UC Davis is a fairly large public university located in the small suburb of Davis.
After graduating, animal science bachelor's recipients usually earn around $32,309 in the first five years of their career.
It's difficult to beat California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in animal science. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo is a very large public university located in the small suburb of San Luis Obispo.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the animal science program state that they receive average early career income of $33,879.
Oregon State University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in animal science. Located in the city of Corvallis, Oregon State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the animal science program state that they receive average early career income of $32,893.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in animal science needs to look into Washington State University. Wazzu is a fairly large public university located in the town of Pullman.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the animal science program make around $31,911 for their early career.
Located in the city of Fresno, Fresno State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the animal science major at California State University - Fresno earn $6,287 above the average college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Located in the large suburb of Pomona, Cal Poly Pomona is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the animal science major at California State Polytechnic University - Pomona get $3,325 above the typical college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).