a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #73 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 9 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Ethnic Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 559 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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.
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
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 schools for ethnic studies students working on their bachelor's degree.
The ethnic studies 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 Ethnic Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region.
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//ethnic-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 pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies needs to check out University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. U-M is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Ann Arbor.
Bachelor's recipients from the ethnic studies program at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor earn $3,173 above the standard graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies needs to check out University of Wisconsin - Madison. Located in the large city of Madison, UW - Madison is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the ethnic studies program state that they receive average early career earnings of $28,841.
University of Notre Dame is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies. Located in the suburb of Notre Dame, Notre Dame is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a bachelor’s in ethnic studies from University of Notre Dame
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a great decision for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in ethnic studies. Located in the city of Champaign, UIUC is a public university with a very large student population.
Those ethnic studies students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign receive $2,038 more than the average ethnic studies student.
UIC is a very large public university located in the city of Chicago.
Ethnic Studies bachelor's degree recipients from University of Illinois at Chicago earn a boost of around $2,548 above the typical earnings of ethnic 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).
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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
