2025 Best Social Sciences Doctor's Degree Schools in California

a doctor's degree in social sciences is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #10 out of 36 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.

In 2025, College Factual analyzed 7 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Social Sciences Doctor's Degree Schools in California ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 562 doctor's degrees in social sciences to qualified students.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Social Sciences School for Your Doctor's Degree

The social sciences doctor'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

The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree 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 doctorate graduates during the early years of their career. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their doctor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.

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 social sciences students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other social sciences students want to attend this school to pursue a doctor'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 much debt social sciences students go into to obtain their doctor'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 social sciences related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for social sciences students working on their doctor's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

Since the program you select can have a significant impact on your future, we've developed a number of rankings, including this Best Social Sciences Doctor's Degree Schools in California list, to help you choose the best school for you.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Social Sciences in California

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a doctor's degree in social sciences.

Top California Schools for a Doctorate in Social Sciences

1

Stanford University
Stanford, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

55 Annual Graduates

Stanford University is a wonderful option for students interested in a doctor's degree in social sciences. Stanford is a large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Stanford.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from Stanford University

2

University of California - Berkeley
Berkeley, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

66 Annual Graduates

Any student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in social sciences needs to look into University of California - Berkeley. UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the city of Berkeley.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from University of California - Berkeley

3

University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

57 Annual Graduates

Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in social sciences needs to check out University of Southern California. USC is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Los Angeles.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from University of Southern California

4

University of California - Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

77 Annual Graduates

University of California - Los Angeles is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a doctor's degree in social sciences. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, UCLA is a public university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from University of California - Los Angeles

5

University of California - Davis
Davis, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

69 Annual Graduates

Located in the suburb of Davis, UC Davis is a public university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from University of California - Davis

6

University of California - San Diego
La Jolla, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

33 Annual Graduates

UCSD is a very large public university located in the city of La Jolla.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from University of California - San Diego

7

University of California - Irvine
Irvine, CA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

52 Annual Graduates

UC Irvine is a fairly large public university located in the city of Irvine.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from University of California - Irvine

Best Social Sciences Colleges in the Far Western US Region

Explore all the Best Social Sciences Colleges in the Far Western US Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Washington	27	61
Oregon	27	48
Nevada	25	14
Hawaii	23	16
Alaska	10	3

View All Rankings >

Social Sciences Majors to Study

Major	Annual Graduates
Economics	220
Political Science & Government	119
Sociology	94
Anthropology	54
Geography & Cartography	42
Urban Studies	7
International Relations & National Security	6
General Social Sciences	4
Demography & Population Studies	3
Other Social Sciences	3

Most Popular Related Majors

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Theology & Religious Vocations	207
Foreign Languages & Linguistics	185
English Language & Literature	92
Philosophy & Religious Studies	82
History	73
Area, Ethnic, Culture, & Gender Studies	63
Communication & Journalism	52
Family, Consumer & Human Sciences	18
Liberal Arts / Sciences & Humanities	13

Notes and References

• 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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to AndrГ© KГјnzelmann. More about our data sources and methodologies.