Ranked #12 in popularity, political science & government is one of the most sought-after bachelor's degree programs in the nation. This means there are lots of options to choose from when you decide to get your degree.
College Factual looked at 17 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Political Science & Government Bachelor's Degree Schools in North Carolina ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,648 bachelor's degrees in political science & government during the 2022-2023 academic year.
Gain a solid understanding of American political history, the current political landscape, and the major political parties with this online bachelor's from Southern New Hampshire University.
Choosing a Great Political Science & Government School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The political science bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. This section explores some of the factors we include in our ranking and how much they vary depending on the school you select. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
A Great Overall School
The overall quality of a bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we include a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection of various factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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
The metrics below are just some of the other metrics that we use to determine our rankings.
Major Focus - How much a school focuses on political science & government students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of political science & government 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 easy is it for political science & government 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 political science & government related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for political science & government students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Political Science & Government Schools
The political science school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Political Science & Government Bachelor's Degree Schools in North Carolina.
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.
DEBUG: Raw major_slug = "social-sciences//political-science-and-government"
Gain a solid understanding of American political history, the current political landscape, and the major political parties with this online bachelor's from Southern New Hampshire University.
Every student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in political science & government has to look into Duke University. Duke is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of Durham.
Those political science & government students who get their bachelor's degree from Duke University earn $20,223 more than the average political science student.
It is difficult to beat University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in political science & government. Located in the city of Chapel Hill, UNC Chapel Hill is a public university with a very large student population.
Those political science & government students who get their bachelor's degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill make $6,453 more than the standard political science grad.
Wake Forest University is a great choice for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in political science & government. Located in the large city of Winston-Salem, Wake Forest University is a private not-for-profit university with a medium-sized student population.
Political Science & Government bachelor's degree recipients from Wake Forest University receive an earnings boost of approximately $12,414 over the typical income of political science & government graduates.
North Carolina State University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in political science & government. Located in the large city of Raleigh, NC State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Political Science & Government bachelor's degree recipients from North Carolina State University earn a boost of approximately $3,574 above the average earnings of political science & government majors.
Elon is a moderately-sized private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Elon.
Those political science & government students who get their bachelor's degree from Elon University make $4,089 more than the typical political science student.
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).