If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in ethnic studies, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #73 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
College Factual looked at 6 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Ethnic Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 222 bachelor's degrees in ethnic studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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 Ethnic Studies School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The ethnic studies bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality ethnic studies 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 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.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
Other Factors We Consider
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on ethnic studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other ethnic studies students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 easy is it for ethnic studies to pay back their student loans after receiving their bachelor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized ethnic studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for ethnic 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 Ethnic Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Southwest Region list to help you make the college decision.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
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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.
It is difficult to beat The University of Texas at Austin if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies. Located in the large city of Austin, UT Austin is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the ethnic studies program at The University of Texas at Austin make $2,509 above the typical college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
It is hard to beat Arizona State University - Tempe if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies. ASU - Tempe is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Tempe.
Bachelor's recipients from the ethnic studies major at Arizona State University - Tempe make $6,182 more than the average college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
It is hard to beat University of Arizona if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies. Located in the large city of Tucson, University of Arizona is a public university with a very large student population.
After graduating, ethnic studies bachelor's recipients usually earn about $26,875 at the beginning of their careers.
University of New Mexico - Main Campus is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies. UNM is a fairly large public university located in the city of Albuquerque.
Those ethnic studies students who get their bachelor's degree from University of New Mexico - Main Campus earn $3,723 more than the typical ethnic studies graduate.
Located in the city of Scottsdale, ASU - Skysong is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the ethnic studies degree program at Arizona State University - Skysong get $6,182 above the typical 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).