If you plan on getting your bachelor's degree in international relations & national security, you won't be alone since the degree program is ranked #58 in the country in terms of popularity. So, you have a fair amount of options to choose from when looking for a school.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 9 schools in Virginia to determine which ones were the best for international relations & national security students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 771 bachelor's degrees in international relations & national security during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great International Relations & National Security School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of international relations & national security for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. 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 bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor'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
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 international relations & national security students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of international relations & national security students who choose to seek a bachelor'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 much debt international relations & national security students go into to obtain their bachelor's degree and how well they are able to pay back that debt.
Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized international relations & national security related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for international relations & national security students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best International Relations & National Security Bachelor's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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It is hard to beat University of Virginia - Main Campus if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in international relations & national security. University of Virginia is a fairly large public university located in the midsize suburb of Charlottesville.
Those international relations & national security students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Virginia - Main Campus receive $4,645 more than the average international relations student.
It's hard to beat Virginia Tech if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in international relations & national security. Virginia Tech is a very large public school located in the small city of Blacksburg.
International Relations & National Security bachelor's degree recipients from Virginia Tech receive an earnings boost of approximately $2,413 over the average earnings of international relations & national security majors.
It's difficult to beat George Mason University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in international relations & national security. Located in the large suburb of Fairfax, GMU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
International Relations & National Security bachelor's degree recipients from George Mason University get an earnings boost of approximately $2,419 over the typical income of international relations & national security graduates.
William & Mary is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in international relations & national security. William & Mary is a medium-sized public school located in the suburb of Williamsburg.
International Relations & National Security bachelor's degree recipients from William & Mary receive an earnings boost of around $5,045 above the average income of international relations & national security graduates.
VMI is a small public school located in the distant town of Lexington.
Bachelor's recipients from the international relations & national security degree program at Virginia Military Institute get $2,204 above the standard graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the city of Harrisonburg, JMU is a public university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the international relations & national security degree program at James Madison University get $2,442 above the average graduate with the same degree shortly after graduation.
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 international relations & national security for getting your bachelor's degree school matters. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
