a bachelor's degree in international studies is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #69 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 4 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best International Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in Massachusetts ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 185 bachelor's degrees in international studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Earn the degree that can help you drive business beyond borders with a specialized online international business degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Choosing a Great International Studies School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The international studies 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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.
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
In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to international studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other international studies students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 international 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 international studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for international studies students working on their bachelor's degree.
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 International Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in Massachusetts 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.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "multi-interdisciplinary-studies//international-studies"
Earn the degree that can help you drive business beyond borders with a specialized online international business degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
Boston College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in international studies. Boston College is a large private not-for-profit college located in the city of Chestnut Hill.
International Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Boston College receive an earnings boost of about $3,477 over the average income of international studies graduates.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in international studies needs to look into Brandeis University. Located in the small city of Waltham, Brandeis is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.
Soon after graduation, international studies bachelor's recipients usually make an average of $36,874 in their early careers.
College of the Holy Cross is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in international studies. Holy Cross is a small private not-for-profit college located in the city of Worcester.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the international studies program state that they receive average early career wages of $46,530.
It is hard to beat Emmanuel College Massachusetts if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in international studies. Emmanuel Boston is a small private not-for-profit college located in the city of Boston.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the international studies program make an average of $29,688 in their early career salary.
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 international studies 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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
