a bachelor's degree in philosophy is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #61 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
College Factual looked at 20 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Philosophy Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,548 bachelor's degrees in philosophy during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: offers_url is valid, proceeding to fetch data
DEBUG: No offers_data.offers found, showing generic ESYOH widget
Choosing a Great Philosophy School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of philosophy 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 Earnings
To determine the overall quality of a graduate school, one factor we look at is the average early-career salary of those receiving their bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 philosophy students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other philosophy 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 philosophy 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 philosophy related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for philosophy students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Philosophy Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Middle Atlantic Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "philosophy-and-religious-studies//philosophy"
University of Pennsylvania is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in philosophy. Located in the large city of Philadelphia, UPenn is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the philosophy degree program at University of Pennsylvania earn $37,658 above the average college graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Columbia University in the City of New York is a wonderful decision for students pursuing a bachelor's degree in philosophy. Located in the large city of New York, Columbia is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Those philosophy students who get their bachelor's degree from Columbia University in the City of New York earn $17,273 more than the typical philosophy student.
University of Maryland - College Park is a great option for students interested in a bachelor's degree in philosophy. UMCP is a fairly large public university located in the suburb of College Park.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the philosophy program state that they receive average early career income of $35,608.
Located in the large city of New York, NYU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the philosophy major at New York University get $4,964 more than the typical college graduate 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.
Your choice of philosophy 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
