a master's degree in social sciences is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #9 out of 37 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
College Factual looked at 5 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Social Sciences Master's Degree Schools in Virginia ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 545 master's degrees in social sciences during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Sociology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.8
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Sociology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.8)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Science & Engineering Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.6
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Science & Engineering Diploma Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.5
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" ACCEPTED (relevance 0.5)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 10
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 10 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.5
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 10
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 0 offers with relevance >= 1.0
DEBUG: Backfilling with 0 offers with relevance >= 0.9
DEBUG: Backfilling with 1 offers with relevance >= 0.8
Choosing a Great Social Sciences School for Your Master's Degree
The social sciences master'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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
A school that excels in educating for a particular major and degree level must be a great school overall as well. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Master's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
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 master's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their master'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 - The number of social sciences students who choose to seek a master's degree at the school.
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 master'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 schools for social sciences students working on their master's degree.
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 Master's Degree Schools in Virginia list, to help you choose the best school for you.
Any student pursuing a degree in a master's degree in social sciences has to take a look at Liberty University. Located in the small city of Lynchburg, Liberty University is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.More information about a master’s in social sciences from Liberty University
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
The social sciences master'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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
