Ranked #19 in popularity, sociology 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.
For its 2025 ranking, College Factual looked at 44 schools in New York 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 2,217 bachelor's degrees in sociology during the 2022-2023 academic year.
DEBUG: Checking offer "Sociology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "Sociology (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BA in Sociology" with relevance 1
DEBUG: ✓ Offer "BA in Sociology" ACCEPTED (relevance 1)
DEBUG: Checking offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "BSW - Social Work (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "DSW - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "MSW - Social Work (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "PhD - Social Work (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Bachelors Programs (I Have a HS Diploma or Associate Degree)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Doctorate Programs (I Have a Masters)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
DEBUG: Checking offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" with relevance 0.7
DEBUG: ✗ Offer "Social Work & Social Sciences Masters Programs (I Have a Bachelors)" REJECTED (relevance 0.7)
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)" REJECTED (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)" REJECTED (relevance 0.6)
DEBUG: relevant_offers count = 2
DEBUG: relevant_offers > 0, checking for ESYOH offers
DEBUG: ESYOH filtering - found 1 ESYOH offers with relevance >= 0.8
DEBUG: esyoh_offers count = 1
DEBUG: ESYOH offers found, rendering ESYOH widget
DEBUG: most_relevant_only = true, filtering for most relevant
DEBUG: Found 1 offers with relevance >= 1.0
Choosing a Great Sociology School for Your Bachelor's Degree
The sociology bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality sociology 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 bachelor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To take this into account we consider a college's overall Best Colleges ranking which itself looks at a collection 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 sociology students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - How many other sociology students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 sociology 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 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.
The sociology school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings, including this list of the Best Sociology Bachelor's Degree Schools in New York.
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//sociology"
It's difficult to beat Columbia University in the City of New York if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology. Columbia is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of New York.
Sociology bachelor's degree recipients from Columbia University in the City of New York earn a boost of about $24,035 over the average income of sociology majors.
It's hard to beat Cornell University if you want to pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the small city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Sociology bachelor's degree recipients from Cornell University get an earnings boost of around $2,203 above the typical earnings of sociology majors.
New York University is one of the finest schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in sociology. NYU is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the large city of New York.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the sociology program earn about $22,697 in the first couple years of working.
Every student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in sociology has to look into Syracuse University. Located in the midsize city of Syracuse, Syracuse is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Those sociology students who get their bachelor's degree from Syracuse University receive $4,126 more than the standard sociology graduate.
Barnard is a small private not-for-profit college located in the large city of New York.
Bachelor's recipients from the sociology degree program at Barnard College earn $13,709 above the average college graduate in this field when they enter the workforce.
Located in the rural area of Hamilton, Colgate is a private not-for-profit university with a small student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the sociology program at Colgate University earn $17,282 above the typical college graduate with the same degree 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).
The sociology bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality sociology program can vary widely even among the top schools. To make it into this list, a school must excel in the following areas.
