If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in child development & psychology, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #37 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 13 schools in the Plains States Region to determine which ones were the best for child development & psychology students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,025 bachelor's degrees in child development & psychology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Child Development & Psychology School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of child development & psychology for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality child development 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 child development & psychology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other child development & psychology 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 child development & psychology 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 child development & psychology related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for child development & psychology students working on their bachelor'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 Child Development & Psychology Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Plains States Region list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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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It's difficult to beat University of Minnesota - Twin Cities if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in child development & psychology. Located in the large city of Minneapolis, UMN Twin Cities is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the child development program make about $31,027 for their early career.
It's hard to beat Washington University in St Louis if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in child development & psychology. Located in the suburb of Saint Louis, WUSTL is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Those child development & psychology students who get their bachelor's degree from Washington University in St Louis receive $2,882 more than the standard child development grad.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in child development & psychology needs to take a look at Carleton College. Carleton is a small private not-for-profit college located in the town of Northfield.
Bachelor's recipients from the child development & psychology degree program at Carleton College get $4,743 more than the average graduate in this field shortly after graduation.
Located in the large suburb of Parkville, Park University is a private not-for-profit university with a moderately-sized student population.
Those child development & psychology students who get their bachelor's degree from Park University make $5,818 more than the typical child development graduate.
Macalester is a small private not-for-profit college located in the large city of Saint Paul.
Child Development & Psychology bachelor's degree recipients from Macalester College receive an earnings boost of about $3,532 above the typical earnings of child development & psychology majors.
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.
by our College Data Analytics Team
Your choice of child development & psychology for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. Important measures of a quality child development program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
