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 25 schools in the Rocky Mountains Region 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 1,215 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
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 good education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To account for this we consider a college's overall Best Colleges 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 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 schools for sociology students working on their bachelor's degree.
Since picking the right college can be one of the most important decisions of your life, we've developed the Best Sociology Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Rocky Mountains Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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.
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Colorado State University - Fort Collins is a wonderful choice for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the city of Fort Collins, Colorado State is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the sociology program at Colorado State University - Fort Collins earn $2,315 above the average college grad with the same degree shortly after graduation.
University of Colorado Boulder is a great choice for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the city of Boulder, CU - Boulder is a public university with a very large student population.
Sociology bachelor's degree recipients from University of Colorado Boulder get an earnings boost of about $2,938 over the average income of sociology majors.
It's difficult to beat University of Utah if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the medium-sized city of Salt Lake City, U of U is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the sociology program make around $36,308 in their early career salary.
It is difficult to beat Brigham Young University - Provo if you wish to pursue a bachelor's degree in sociology. Located in the medium-sized city of Provo, BYU is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the sociology program state that they receive average early career earnings of $35,404.
UM is a fairly large public university located in the small city of Missoula.
Bachelor's recipients from the sociology program at The University of Montana earn $4,140 above the typical 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).
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.
