General Social Sciences is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #67 most popular bachelor's degree program in the country. 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 22 schools in the Far Western US Region to determine which ones were the best for general social sciences students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,574 bachelor's degrees in general social sciences during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great General Social Sciences School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The social sciences bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality social sciences 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 many resources a school devotes to general social sciences students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other general social sciences 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 general social sciences 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 general social sciences related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for general social sciences students working on their bachelor'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 General Social Sciences Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region list to help you make the college decision.
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 is hard to beat University of Southern California if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in general social sciences. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Los Angeles.
After graduating, social sciences bachelor's recipients usually earn about $33,789 at the beginning of their careers.
University of Oregon is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in general social sciences. UO is a fairly large public university located in the city of Eugene.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the social sciences program state that they receive average early career income of $38,147.
University of Washington - Seattle Campus is a wonderful option for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in general social sciences. Located in the large city of Seattle, UW Seattle is a public university with a very large student population.
Those general social sciences students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Washington - Seattle Campus receive $21,250 more than the standard social sciences student.
Portland State University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in general social sciences. Portland State University is a very large public university located in the large city of Portland.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the social sciences program earn around $35,093 in the first couple years of working.
Located in the town of Pullman, Wazzu is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the general social sciences degree program at Washington State University earn $6,781 more than the average graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the distant town of Ellensburg, CWU is a public university with a moderately-sized student population.
General Social Sciences bachelor's degree recipients from Central Washington University earn a boost of approximately $6,044 above the typical income of general social sciences graduates.
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).
The social sciences bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality social sciences program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
