2025 Best International Relations & National Security Doctor's Degree Schools
2Colleges in the United States
94Doctor's Degrees
International Relations & National Security isn't the most popular doctorate program in the world, but it's not the least popular either. To be more precise it ranks #128 in popularity out of 306 majors in the country. As such, the degree program isn't offered at every college in the United States, but there are schools that do have a program in the field that are top-notch when it comes to quality.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 2 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best International Relations & National Security Doctor's Degree Schools ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 94 doctor's degrees in international relations & national security to qualified students.
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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
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 - How many other international relations & national security students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor's degree.
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 international relations & national security 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 international relations & national security related body.
Our full 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 doctor'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 Doctor's Degree Schools ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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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).
by our College Data Analytics Team
