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 reviewed 5 schools in Maine to determine which ones were the best for bachelor's degree seekers in the field of political science & government. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 292 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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a school's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a host 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 schools for political science & government students working on their bachelor's degree.
More Ways to Rank Political Science & Government Schools
Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Political Science & Government Bachelor's Degree Schools in Maine list, to help you choose the best school for you.
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.
Bowdoin College is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in political science & government. Located in the fringe town of Brunswick, Bowdoin is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the political science & government major at Bowdoin College get $16,054 more than the average graduate with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Colby College is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in political science & government. Colby is a small private not-for-profit college located in the remote town of Waterville.
Bachelor's recipients from the political science & government program at Colby College earn $9,781 above the standard college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Bates College is a good choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in political science & government. Located in the small city of Lewiston, Bates is a private not-for-profit college with a small student population.
After graduating, political science bachelor's recipients typically earn around $41,055 at the beginning of their careers.
University of Southern Maine is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in political science & government. University of Southern Maine is a moderately-sized public university located in the city of Portland.
After graduation, political science bachelor's recipients generally earn about $28,589 in their early careers.
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 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.
