English Language & Literature is about average in terms of popularity for doctor's degrees programs. That is, it ranks #16 out of the 36 majors across the country that we analyze each year. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in Pennsylvania to determine which ones were the best for english language & literature students pursuing a doctor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 73 doctor's degrees in english language & literature during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great English Language & Literature School for Your Doctor's Degree
The english language & literature doctor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality english language & literature program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
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 include a college's overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking which itself looks at a combination of various 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 doctorate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their doctor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 english language & literature students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of english language & literature 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 easy is it for english language & literature to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized english language & literature related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for english language & literature students working on their doctor's degree.
More Ways to Rank English Language & Literature Schools
The english language & 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 English Language & Literature Doctor's Degree Schools in Pennsylvania.
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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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
The english language & literature doctor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality english language & literature program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
