a doctor's degree in religious studies is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #80 out of 306 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Religious Studies Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southeast Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 80 doctor's degrees in religious studies during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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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 doctor's degree from the school. After all, your doctor'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 religious studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of religious studies students who choose to seek a doctor'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 much debt religious studies students go into to obtain their doctor'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 religious studies related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for religious studies students working on their doctor's degree.
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Religious Studies Doctor's Degree Schools in the Southeast Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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Every student who is interested in a doctor's degree in religious studies has to take a look at Emory University. Located in the large city of Atlanta, Emory is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population.
Students who graduate with their doctorate from the religion program state that they receive average early career income of $58,984.
Liberty University is one of the best schools in the country for getting a doctor's degree in religious studies. Located in the small city of Lynchburg, Liberty University is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in religious studies from Liberty University
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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).
