If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in parks, recreation & leisure studies, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #123 in the country in terms of popularity. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in Arizona to determine which ones were the best for parks, recreation & leisure studies students pursuing a bachelor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 103 bachelor's degrees in parks, recreation & leisure studies to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The parks & rec bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality parks & rec program can vary widely even among the top schools. 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 parks, recreation & leisure studies students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other parks, recreation & leisure 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 much debt parks, recreation & leisure studies 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 parks, recreation & leisure studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for parks, recreation & leisure studies students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Parks, Recreation & Leisure 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 Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in Arizona list to help you make the college decision.
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.
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Arizona State University - Tempe is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in parks, recreation & leisure studies. ASU - Tempe is a fairly large public university located in the midsize city of Tempe.
Parks, Recreation & Leisure Studies bachelor's degree recipients from Arizona State University - Tempe earn a boost of approximately $3,826 over the average income of parks, recreation & leisure studies graduates.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in parks, recreation & leisure studies needs to look into Northern Arizona University. Located in the small city of Flagstaff, NAU is a public university with a very large student population.
After graduating, parks & rec bachelor's recipients usually make about $31,672 in the first five years of their career.
Arizona State University - Skysong is one of the finest schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in parks, recreation & leisure studies. Located in the midsize city of Scottsdale, ASU - Skysong is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the parks, recreation & leisure studies degree program at Arizona State University - Skysong get $3,826 above the typical college grad in this field when they enter the workforce.
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.
The parks & rec bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality parks & rec program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
