If you pursue a bachelor's degree in liberal arts general studies, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #13 most popular program in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual reviewed 8 schools in Virginia to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of liberal arts general studies. Combined, these schools handed out 1,918 bachelor's degrees in liberal arts general studies to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Liberal Arts General Studies School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of liberal arts general studies 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good 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 collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor'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 many resources a school devotes to liberal arts general studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other liberal arts general studies students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor'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 liberal arts general 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 liberal arts general studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for liberal arts general studies students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Liberal Arts General Studies Schools
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 Liberal Arts General Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia list to help you make the college decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in liberal arts general studies has to take a look at George Mason University. Located in the large suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the liberal arts program make about $41,398 in the first couple years of working.
James Madison University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in liberal arts general studies. Located in the small city of Harrisonburg, JMU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Liberal Arts General Studies bachelor's degree recipients from James Madison University receive an earnings boost of approximately $8,841 over the average earnings of liberal arts general studies graduates.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in liberal arts general studies needs to look into University of Mary Washington. Located in the suburb of Fredericksburg, UMW is a public university with a small student population.
After graduating, liberal arts bachelor's recipients generally make about $37,677 at the beginning of their careers.
It's hard to beat Longwood University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in liberal arts general studies. Longwood is a small public university located in the distant town of Farmville.
Bachelor's recipients from the liberal arts general studies degree program at Longwood University make $6,147 above the standard graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Bridgewater is a small private not-for-profit college located in the suburb of Bridgewater.
Bachelor's recipients from the liberal arts general studies degree program at Bridgewater College earn $6,253 more than the typical graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the city of Harrisonburg, Eastern Mennonite is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Those liberal arts general studies students who get their bachelor's degree from Eastern Mennonite University make $6,018 more than the average liberal arts grad.
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.