If you pursue a doctor's degree in general biology, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #19 most popular program in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best General Biology Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 209 doctor's degrees in general biology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Biology School for Your Doctor's Degree
Your choice of general biology for getting your doctor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality biology program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To take this into account we consider a school's overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking which itself looks at a host of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their doctor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their doctor'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 many resources a school devotes to general biology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of general biology students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
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 general biology students go into to obtain their doctor'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 general biology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for general biology students working on their doctor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best General Biology Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in general biology has to look into Texas A&M University - College Station. Texas A&M College Station is a very large public university located in the midsize city of College Station.
Soon after graduation, biology doctorate recipients typically earn an average of $57,448 in their early careers.
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.
Your choice of general biology for getting your doctor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality biology program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
