Ranked #20 in popularity, history is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 9 schools in Tennessee to determine which ones were the best for history students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 462 bachelor's degrees in history to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great History School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of history 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 quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a combination of various 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 history students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of history 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 history 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 history related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for history 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 History Bachelor's Degree Schools in Tennessee 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.
It is difficult to beat Vanderbilt University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in history. Located in the city of Nashville, Vanderbilt is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the history degree program at Vanderbilt University get $15,216 above the typical college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in history needs to take a look at The University of Tennessee - Knoxville. UT Knoxville is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Knoxville.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the history program state that they receive average early career earnings of $28,713.
Rhodes College is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in history. Located in the large city of Memphis, Rhodes College is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
After graduation, history bachelor's recipients generally earn around $29,279 in the first five years of their career.
Located in the midsize city of Clarksville, Austin Peay State University is a public university with a medium-sized student population.
History bachelor's degree recipients from Austin Peay State University receive an earnings boost of about $2,816 above the average income of history 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.
Your choice of history 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:
