Ranked #16 in popularity, physics is one of the most sought-after doctor's degree programs in the nation. This makes choosing the right school a hard decision.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Physics Doctor's Degree Schools in Ohio ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 65 doctor's degrees in physics 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 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 colleges for physics students working on their doctor's degree.
The physics school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Physics Doctor's Degree Schools in Ohio.
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Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in physics has to take a look at Ohio State University - Main Campus. Ohio State is a fairly large public university located in the large city of Columbus.
Doctorate students who receive their degree from the physics program earn around $111,486 for their early career.
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).
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