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 15 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Area Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 764 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 account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection 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 full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools 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 Middle Atlantic 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.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in area studies needs to take a look at Columbia University in the City of New York. Columbia is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of New York.
Area Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Columbia University in the City of New York earn a boost of approximately $7,213 above the typical income of area studies majors.
It's difficult to beat Cornell University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in area studies. Located in the small city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Area Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Cornell University earn a boost of approximately $9,565 over the typical income of area studies majors.
It's difficult to beat Fordham University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in area studies. Fordham U is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Bronx.
Area Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Fordham University get an earnings boost of approximately $6,545 over the typical earnings of area studies majors.
Located in the town of Geneva, The Colleges is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
Those area studies students who get their bachelor's degree from Hobart and William Smith Colleges earn $5,673 more than the typical area studies student.
Located in the large suburb of Adelphi, UMGC is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the area studies program at University of Maryland Global Campus get $14,384 more than the standard college graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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:
