When it comes to popularity, a bachelor's degree in literature sits in the middle of the road, ranking #210 out of 363 majors in the country. As such, the degree program isn't offered at every college in the United States, but there are schools that do have a program in the field that are top-notch when it comes to quality.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 10 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Literature Bachelor's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 486 bachelor's degrees in literature during the <nil> academic year.
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Choosing a Great Literature School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of literature for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to literature students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of literature students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
Student Debt - How much debt literature 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 literature related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for literature students working on their bachelor's degree.
The literature 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 Literature Bachelor's Degree Schools.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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University of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh Campus is a wonderful decision for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in literature. Located in the city of Pittsburgh, Pitt is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the literature program make around $23,868 in the first couple years of their career.
University of California - Los Angeles is a wonderful choice for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in literature. Located in the city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a very large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the literature program report average early career income of $22,704.
Duke University is a wonderful decision for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in literature. Located in the large city of Durham, Duke is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.More information about a bachelor’s in literature from Duke University
Located in the large city of New York, Pace University is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Literature bachelor's degree recipients from Pace University - New York earn a boost of around $2,383 over the average earnings of literature graduates.
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.