a doctor's degree in psychology is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #6 out of 36 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 2 schools in Missouri to determine which ones were the best for psychology students pursuing a doctor's degree. Combined, these schools handed out 68 doctor's degrees in psychology to qualified students.
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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
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to psychology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of psychology students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
Educational Resources - How many resources are allocated to students. These resources may include educational expenditures per student, number of students per instructor, and graduation rate among other things.
Student Debt - How easy is it for psychology 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 psychology related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for psychology students working on their doctor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Psychology Doctor's Degree Schools in Missouri ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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).