Public Policy is above average in terms of popularity with it being the #121 most popular bachelor's degree program in the country. This means you won't have too much trouble finding schools that offer the degree.
In 2025, College Factual analyzed 36 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 2,471 bachelor's degrees in public policy during the <nil> academic year.
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Choosing a Great Public Policy School for Your Bachelor's Degree
Your choice of public policy 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
Quality Overall Is Important
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 combination of different factors like degree completion, educational resources, student body caliber and post-graduation earnings for the school as a whole.
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 bachelor's degree from the school. This is because one of the main reasons people pursue their bachelor's degree is to enable themselves to find better-paying positions.
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 public policy students vs. other majors.
Major Demand - The number of public policy students who choose to seek a bachelor's degree at the school.
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 public policy 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 public policy related body.
Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best colleges for public policy 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 Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools list, to help you choose the best school for you.
In addition to College Factual's rankings, you may want to take a look at College Combat, our unique tool that lets you pit your favorite schools head-to-head and compare how they rate on factors that most interest you.
When you have some time, check it out - you may want to bookmark the link so you don't forget it.
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Prepare yourself to make the decisions that best serve a community, its constituents and its economic growth with this specialized business degree from Southern New Hampshire University.
University of Chicago is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in public policy. UChicago is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Chicago.
Those public policy students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Chicago earn $13,632 more than the standard public policy graduate.
Duke University is a great choice for students interested in a bachelor's degree in public policy. Duke is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the city of Durham.
Those public policy students who get their bachelor's degree from Duke University receive $14,076 more than the typical public policy grad.
Cornell University is a great choice for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in public policy. Located in the small city of Ithaca, Cornell is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Those public policy students who get their bachelor's degree from Cornell University make $31,481 more than the average public policy grad.
Any student who is interested in a bachelor's degree in public policy has to look into University of Southern California. Located in the large city of Los Angeles, USC is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population.
Those public policy students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Southern California earn $5,978 more than the average public policy graduate.
Located in the medium-sized city of Ann Arbor, U-M is a public university with a fairly large student population.
Those public policy students who get their bachelor's degree from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor earn $3,260 more than the standard public policy grad.
Located in the city of Evanston, Northwestern is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population.
Bachelor's recipients from the public policy degree program at Northwestern University get $2,133 above the average college grad with the same degree when they enter the workforce.
Brown is a large private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of Providence.
Public Policy bachelor's degree recipients from Brown University get an earnings boost of around $11,736 above the typical earnings of public policy graduates.
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 public policy 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. When choosing a school we recommend considering some of the following factors:
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