If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in area studies, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #85 in the country in terms of popularity. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
College Factual looked at 7 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Area Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 401 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
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 complete 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.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Area Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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.
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.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in area studies needs to check out University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. Located in the medium-sized city of Ann Arbor, U-M is a public university with a fairly large student population.
After graduating, area studies bachelor's recipients generally make an average of $28,261 in the first five years of their career.
University of Notre Dame is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in area studies. Notre Dame is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large suburb of Notre Dame.
Bachelor's recipients from the area studies program at University of Notre Dame get $2,023 above the typical graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
It's difficult to beat Miami University - Oxford if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in area studies. Located in the fringe town of Oxford, Miami University - Oxford is a public university with a large student population.
Area Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Miami University - Oxford earn a boost of approximately $17,356 over the typical earnings of area studies 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.
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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
