2025 Best Social Sciences Doctor's Degree Schools in Massachusetts

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.

For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 3 schools in Massachusetts to determine which ones were the best for social sciences students pursuing a doctor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 263 doctor's degrees in social sciences during the 2022-2023 academic year.

What's on this page: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

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

Your choice of social sciences for getting your doctor'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. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.

A Great Overall School

A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree 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.

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

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 social sciences students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of social sciences students who choose to seek a doctor'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 social sciences 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 social sciences related body.

Our full 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.

More Ways to Rank Social Sciences Schools

Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Social Sciences Doctor's Degree Schools in Massachusetts ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Social Sciences in Massachusetts

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

Top Massachusetts Schools for a Doctorate in Social Sciences

1

Harvard University
Cambridge, MA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

102 Annual Graduates

It is hard to beat Harvard University if you wish to pursue a doctor's degree in social sciences. Located in the city of Cambridge, Harvard is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from Harvard University

2

Boston College
Chestnut Hill, MA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

26 Annual Graduates

Every student pursuing a degree in a doctor's degree in social sciences needs to check out Boston College. Located in the city of Chestnut Hill, Boston College is a private not-for-profit college with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from Boston College

3

Boston University
Boston, MA

Doctor's Degree Highest Degree Type

40 Annual Graduates

Boston University is a good option for individuals interested in a doctor's degree in social sciences. Located in the city of Boston, Boston U is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a doctorate in social sciences from Boston University

Best Social Sciences Colleges in the New England Region

Explore all the Best Social Sciences Schools in the New England Area or other specific states within that region.

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Connecticut	28	68
Rhode Island	23	32
Maine	18	0
New Hampshire	16	6
Vermont	14	0

View All Rankings >

Social Sciences Majors to Study

Major	Annual Graduates
Economics	137
Political Science & Government	64
Sociology	27
Anthropology	26
International Relations & National Security	6
Archeology	3

Most Popular Related Majors

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Theology & Religious Vocations	55
Foreign Languages & Linguistics	50
History	47
Area, Ethnic, Culture, & Gender Studies	44
Philosophy & Religious Studies	39
English Language & Literature	34
Communication & Journalism	23
Family, Consumer & Human Sciences	7

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.