When it comes to popularity, a bachelor's degree in urban studies sits in the middle of the road, ranking #163 out of 363 majors in the country. So, you may have to do some digging around to find quality schools that offer the degree program. This list can help with that.
College Factual looked at 9 colleges and universities when compiling its 2025 Best Urban Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking. Combined, these schools handed out 308 bachelor's degrees in urban studies to qualified students.
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Choosing a Great Urban Studies School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of urban studies 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 urban studies students as compared to other majors.
Major Demand - How many other urban studies students want to attend this school to pursue a bachelor's degree.
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 easy is it for urban studies 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 urban studies related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for urban studies 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 Urban Studies Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Far Western US Region ranking, along with many other major-related rankings, to help you make that decision.
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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University of California - Berkeley is a wonderful choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in urban studies. UC Berkeley is a very large public university located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley.
Those urban studies students who get their bachelor's degree from University of California - Berkeley make $12,147 more than the typical urban studies student.
University of California - San Diego is a good choice for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in urban studies. UCSD is a very large public university located in the city of La Jolla.
Soon after graduating, urban studies bachelor's recipients usually earn around $37,074 at the beginning of their careers.
University of California - Irvine is a great option for individuals interested in a bachelor's degree in urban studies. UC Irvine is a fairly large public university located in the city of Irvine.
Soon after graduation, urban studies bachelor's recipients typically make about $34,385 in the first five years of their career.
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).