2025 Best Health Professions Doctor's Degree Schools in Illinois

If you pursue a doctor's degree in health professions, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #1 most popular program in the country. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 16 schools in Illinois to determine which ones were the best for health professions students pursuing a doctor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 4,254 doctor's degrees in health professions during the 2022-2023 academic year.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Health Professions School for Your Doctor's Degree

The health professions doctor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. 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

A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this we include a school's overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree 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 doctor's degree from the school. After all, your doctor'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 much a school focuses on health professions students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of health professions students who choose to seek a doctor'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 easy is it for health professions to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized health professions related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for health professions students working on their doctor's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Health Professions Doctor's Degree Schools in Illinois ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Health Professions in Illinois

The following list ranks the best colleges and universities for pursuing a doctor's degree in health professions.

10 Top Illinois Schools for a Doctorate in Health Professions

1

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

299 Annual Graduates

Northwestern University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in health professions. Located in the small city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in health professions from Northwestern University

2

Chamberlain University - Illinois
Addison, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

482 Annual Graduates

It is difficult to beat Chamberlain University - Illinois if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in health professions. Located in the large suburb of Addison, Chamberlain - Illinois is a private for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in health professions from Chamberlain University - Illinois

3

University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

794 Annual Graduates

University of Illinois at Chicago is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a doctor's degree in health professions. Located in the city of Chicago, UIC is a public university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in health professions from University of Illinois at Chicago

4

Bradley University
Peoria, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

71 Annual Graduates

Bradley University is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in health professions. Bradley is a medium-sized private not-for-profit university located in the midsize city of Peoria.More information about a doctorate in health professions from Bradley University

5

Rush University
Chicago, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

425 Annual Graduates

Rush University is a small private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Chicago.More information about a doctorate in health professions from Rush University

6

Loyola University Chicago
Chicago, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

188 Annual Graduates

Loyola Chicago is a large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Chicago.More information about a doctorate in health professions from Loyola University Chicago

7

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Edwardsville, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

212 Annual Graduates

SIUE is a fairly large public university located in the large suburb of Edwardsville.More information about a doctorate in health professions from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

8

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

48 Annual Graduates

UIUC is a fairly large public university located in the small city of Champaign.More information about a doctorate in health professions from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

9

Saint Anthony College of Nursing
Rockford, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

16 Annual Graduates

Located in the midsize city of Rockford, SACN is a private not-for-profit college with a fairly small student population.More information about a doctorate in health professions from Saint Anthony College of Nursing

10

DePaul University
Chicago, IL

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

31 Annual Graduates

DePaul is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Chicago.More information about a doctorate in health professions from DePaul University

Best Health Professions Colleges in the Great Lakes Region

Explore all the Best Health Professions Colleges in the Great Lakes Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Indiana	29	1,621
Michigan	29	2,424
Ohio	29	3,069
Wisconsin	27	1,360

View All Rankings >

Health Professions Majors to Study

Major	Annual Graduates
Medicine	1,391
Nursing	1,151
Pharmacy/Pharmaceutical Sciences	514
Rehabilitation & Therapeutic Professions	452
Dentistry	307
Optometry	163
Communication Sciences	82
Chiropractic	65
Alternative Medicine & Systems	39
Allied Health Professions	28

Notes and References

• 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). More about our data sources and methodologies.