2025 Best History Doctor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region

History isn't the most popular doctorate program in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #19 in popularity out of 36 majors in the country. So, it might take a little more work to find colleges and universities that offer the degree program.

College Factual reviewed 3 schools in the Middle Atlantic Region to determine which ones were the best for doctor's degree seekers in the field of history. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 173 doctor's degrees in history during the 2022-2023 academic year.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great History School for Your Doctor's Degree

Your choice of history for getting your doctor'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. 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 account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree 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.

Early-Career Earnings

One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of doctorate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their doctor'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 - How many other history students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor's degree.
• 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 history 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 history related body.

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

More Ways to Rank History Schools

Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best History Doctor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study History in the Middle Atlantic Region

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

Top Middle Atlantic Region Schools for a Doctorate in History

1

University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

17 Annual Graduates

University of Pennsylvania is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a doctor's degree in history. UPenn is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Philadelphia.More information about a doctorate in history from University of Pennsylvania

2

Columbia University in the City of New York
New York, NY

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

13 Annual Graduates

Columbia University in the City of New York is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in history. Columbia is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of New York.More information about a doctorate in history from Columbia University in the City of New York

3

University of Maryland - College Park
College Park, MD

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

10 Annual Graduates

Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in history has to look into University of Maryland - College Park. Located in the large suburb of College Park, UMCP is a public university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in history from University of Maryland - College Park

Best History Colleges by State

Explore the best history colleges for a specific state in the Middle Atlantic Region .

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
New York	30	65
Maryland	29	18
Pennsylvania	29	36
New Jersey	28	23
District of Columbia	24	25
Delaware	21	2

View All Rankings >

History Majors to Study

Major	Annual Graduates
History	173

Majors Similar to History

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Social Sciences	832
Foreign Languages & Linguistics	287
Theology & Religious Vocations	248
English Language & Literature	225
Philosophy & Religious Studies	161
Communication & Journalism	88
Area, Ethnic, Culture, & Gender Studies	84
Family, Consumer & Human Sciences	24
Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities	19

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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to Abraham Ortelius. More about our data sources and methodologies.