a bachelor's degree in area studies is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #85 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
College Factual reviewed 14 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of area studies. Combined, these schools handed out 705 bachelor's degrees in area studies to qualified students.
Explore societal similarities and differences as seen through cultural, biological, archaeological and linguistic lenses when you earn one of your degrees in anthropology from Southern New Hampshire University.
Choosing a Great Area Studies School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of area studies 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 consider a school's overall Best Colleges 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.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
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 area studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of area studies students who choose to seek a bachelor'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 area studies 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 area studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for area studies students working on their bachelor's degree.
When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Area Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "ethnic-cultural-gender-studies//area-studies"
Explore societal similarities and differences as seen through cultural, biological, archaeological and linguistic lenses when you earn one of your degrees in anthropology from Southern New Hampshire University.
University of California - Berkeley is a good option for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in area studies. Located in the city of Berkeley, UC Berkeley is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the area studies program at University of California - Berkeley get $16,965 more than the average graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
University of Washington - Seattle Campus is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in area studies. UW Seattle is a fairly large public university located in the city of Seattle.
Area Studies bachelor's degree recipients from University of Washington - Seattle Campus get an earnings boost of about $9,905 over the typical income of area studies majors.
University of California - Los Angeles is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in area studies. UCLA is a very large public university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
After graduation, area studies bachelor's recipients usually make around $23,819 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.
Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s (College Scorecard).
Your choice of area studies 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
