a bachelor's degree in cognitive science is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #117 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 9 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Cognitive Science Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,789 bachelor's degrees in cognitive science during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "General Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "General Psychology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "General Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "General Psychology (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "General Psychology (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "General Psychology (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Psychology Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology EdS Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Psychology EdS Programs (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology Graduate Certificate Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Psychology Graduate Certificate Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology PhD Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Psychology PhD Programs (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Psychology PsyD Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Psychology PsyD Programs (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Science & Engineering Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 0
DEBUG: No relevant offers, showing generic ESYOH widget
Choosing a Great Cognitive Science School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The cognitive science bachelor'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. 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 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.
Early-Career Earnings
One measure we use to determine the quality of a school is to look at the average salary of bachelor's graduates during the early years of their career. That is, everyone wants their bachelor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.
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 cognitive science students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of cognitive science students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 cognitive science 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 cognitive science related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for cognitive science students working on their bachelor's degree.
The cognitive science 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 Cognitive Science Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region.
In addition to our rankings, you can take two colleges and compare them based on the criteria that matters most to you in our unique tool, College Combat.
Test it out when you get a chance! You may also want to bookmark the link and share it with others who are trying to make the college decision.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "multi-interdisciplinary-studies//cognitive-science"
Stanford University is a great option for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in cognitive science. Stanford is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Stanford.
Cognitive Science bachelor's degree recipients from Stanford University get an earnings boost of about $54,633 over the typical earnings of cognitive science majors.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in cognitive science has to check out University of California - Berkeley. UC Berkeley is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley.
Bachelor's recipients from the cognitive science degree program at University of California - Berkeley make $13,497 more than the typical college graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in cognitive science has to check out University of California - San Diego. UCSD is a fairly large public university located in the large city of La Jolla.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the cognitive science program report average early career earnings of $39,839.
It is hard to beat University of California - Los Angeles if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in cognitive science. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the cognitive science major at University of California - Los Angeles get $2,900 more than the typical college grad in this field shortly after graduation.
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 cognitive science bachelor'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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
