2025 Best Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region

a bachelor's degree in public policy is more popular than many other degrees. In fact, it ranks #121 out of 363 on popularity of all such degrees in the nation. As a result, there are many college that offer the degree, making your choice of school a hard one.

In 2025, College Factual analyzed 6 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 304 bachelor's degrees in public policy during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Bachelor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Public Policy School for Your Bachelor's Degree

The public policy bachelor's degree program you select can have a big impact on your future. Important measures of a quality public policy 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

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.

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

In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:

• Major Focus - How many resources a school devotes to public policy students as compared to other majors.
• Major Demand - How many other public policy 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 much debt public policy 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 public policy related body.

Our complete ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for public policy students working on their bachelor's degree.

More Ways to Rank Public Policy Schools

When choosing the right school for you, it's important to arm yourself with all the facts you can. To that end, we've created a number of major-specific rankings, including this Best Public Policy Bachelor's Degree Schools in the Great Lakes Region list to help you make the college 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.

Best Schools for Bachelor’s Students to Study Public Policy in the Great Lakes Region

Below you'll see a list of the best colleges and universities for pursuing a bachelor's degree in public policy.

Top Great Lakes Region Schools for a Bachelor's in Public Policy

1

University of Chicago
Chicago, IL

90 Annual Graduates

$60,057 Median Starting Salary

University of Chicago is a great option for individuals pursuing a bachelor's degree in public policy. Located in the city of Chicago, UChicago 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 Chicago make $12,198 more than the average public policy student.

More information about a bachelor’s in public policy from University of Chicago

2

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor, MI

77 Annual Graduates

$49,685 Median Starting Salary

Any student pursuing a degree in a bachelor's degree in public policy has to look into University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. U-M is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Ann Arbor.

Soon after graduating, public policy bachelor's recipients usually earn an average of $49,685 in the first five years of their career.

More information about a bachelor’s in public policy from University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

3

Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

36 Annual Graduates

$48,558 Median Starting Salary

Northwestern University is one of the best schools in the United States for getting a bachelor's degree in public policy. Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Evanston.

Bachelor's graduates who receive their degree from the public policy program make around $48,558 in their early career salary.

More information about a bachelor’s in public policy from Northwestern University

4

Ohio State University - Main Campus
Columbus, OH

32 Annual Graduates

$50,643 Median Starting Salary

Ohio State University - Main Campus is one of the best schools in the country for getting a bachelor's degree in public policy. Ohio State is a fairly large public university located in the city of Columbus.

Bachelor's recipients from the public policy major at Ohio State University - Main Campus make $2,784 more than the typical college grad in this field shortly after graduation.

More information about a bachelor’s in public policy from Ohio State University - Main Campus

5

Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI

19 Annual Graduates

$43,005 Median Starting Salary

$30,925 Median Student Debt

Located in the city of East Lansing, Michigan State is a public university with a very large student population.

Students who graduate with their bachelor's from the public policy program state that they receive average early career income of $43,005.

More information about a bachelor’s in public policy from Michigan State University

6

University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, IL

27 Annual Graduates

$35,205 Median Starting Salary

UIC is a very large public university located in the large city of Chicago.

Bachelor's students who receive their degree from the public policy program earn around $35,205 in their early career salary.

More information about a bachelor’s in public policy from University of Illinois at Chicago

Best Public Policy Colleges by State

Explore the best public policy schools for a specific state in the Great Lakes Region .

State	Colleges	Degrees Awarded
Michigan	261	97
Ohio	252	22
Illinois	241	186

View All Rankings >

Rankings in Majors Related to Public Policy

One of 4 majors within the Public Administration & Social Service area of study, Public Policy has other similar majors worth exploring.

Public Policy Focus Areas

Major	Annual Graduates
General Public Policy Analysis	285
International Policy Analysis	10
Education Policy Analysis	9

Most Popular Majors Related to Public Policy

Related Major	Annual Graduates
Public Administration	752
Human Services	276
Community Organization & Advocacy	223
Other Public Administration	28

Notes and References

• 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).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to The Official CTBTO Photostream. More about our data sources and methodologies.