Physics is of the hottest doctor's degree programs in the United States, coming in as the #16 most popular major in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 11 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Physics Doctor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 343 doctor's degrees in physics to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Physics School for Your Doctor's Degree
Your choice of physics for getting your doctor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality physics program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree 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 doctor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their doctor'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 many resources a school devotes to physics students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other physics students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor'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 physics to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized physics related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for physics students working on their doctor'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 Physics Doctor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
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Any student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in physics needs to look into University of California - Berkeley. UC Berkeley is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley.
Physics doctor's degree recipients from University of California - Berkeley receive an earnings boost of approximately $2,292 over the average income of physics graduates.
University of California - San Diego is a great option for individuals interested in a doctor's degree in physics. UCSD is a fairly large public university located in the city of La Jolla.
Soon after graduating, physics doctorate recipients usually earn an average of $89,022 in their early careers.
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).
Your choice of physics for getting your doctor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality physics program can vary widely even among the top schools. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
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