If you pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology, you won't be alone. The field of study is the #19 most popular program in the country. So, there are lots of possibilities to explore when you're trying to determine where you want to get your degree.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 10 schools in Michigan to determine which ones were the best for sociology students pursuing a bachelor's degree. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 494 bachelor's degrees in sociology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
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Choosing a Great Sociology School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of sociology for getting your bachelor'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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
Overall Quality Is a Must
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 ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.
Average Early-Career Salaries
Average early-career salary of those graduating with their bachelor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. After all, your bachelor's degree won't mean much if it doesn't help you find a job that will help you earn a living.
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 sociology students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - The number of sociology students who choose to seek a bachelor'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 sociology students go into to obtain their bachelor'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 sociology related body.
Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for sociology students working on their bachelor'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 Sociology Bachelor's Degree Schools in Michigan list, to help you choose the best school for you.
To further help you make the college decision, we've developed a unique tool called College Combat that allows you to compare schools based on the factors that matter the most to you.
Go ahead and give it a try, or bookmark the link so you can check it out later.
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It is difficult to beat University of Michigan - Ann Arbor if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology. U-M is a very large public university located in the midsize city of Ann Arbor.
Sociology bachelor's degree recipients from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor receive an earnings boost of approximately $2,105 above the typical earnings of sociology majors.
It's hard to beat Michigan State University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the small city of East Lansing, Michigan State is a public university with a very large student population.
Sociology bachelor's degree recipients from Michigan State University earn a boost of approximately $3,328 over the average income of sociology majors.
It is difficult to beat Wayne State University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology. Wayne State is a very large public university located in the large city of Detroit.
Soon after graduating, sociology bachelor's recipients generally earn an average of $31,381 at the beginning of their careers.
Grand Valley State University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the fringe town of Allendale, GVSU is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Soon after graduating, sociology bachelor's recipients typically make about $32,132 at the beginning of their careers.
Located in the small city of Kalamazoo, WMU is a public university with a large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the sociology major at Western Michigan University earn $3,672 above the average graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
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).
Your choice of sociology for getting your bachelor'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. Below we explain some of the most important factors to consider before making your choice:
